While urging leaders across the world to rise to the challenge of corruption in order to enhance global economic development and security, the chairman of EFCC (Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), Abdulrasheed Bawa, says Nigeria lost N5.4trillion to tax evasion by multinationals from 2011 to 2021.
This, he said, is apart from the theft of resources in the nation’s oil and gas sector.
Bawa made this revelation while presenting a paper at the 38th Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, organized by the Center for International Documentation on Organized and Economic Crime (CIDOEC), Jesus College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Represented by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Sambo Mayana, Bawa said economic and financial crimes manifest in various forms in different nations, as reported in the DAILY POST.
He said the “spoiler” effects on countries’ development processes are diverse and particularly severe for fragile states.
Bawa blamed the poor living conditions of people in developing countries on pervasive economic crimes going on.
“Illegal mining, smuggling of goods, tax evasion, illegal oil bunkering, illegal arms deals do not allow the government to receive the full accruals from the continent’s vast resources,” said the EFCC chairman.
Nigeria has lost about N17bn to tax collection in the hands of agencies of government. “From the time I took over on the 5th of March 2021, we have recovered over N6billion, over $161million, over £13,000, €1,730, 200 Canadian dollars, CFA 373,000, ¥8,430 and 30 property.
