From Juliana Taiwo- Obalonye, Abuja

THE Federal Executive Council has approved the Multilateral Compe­tent Agreement and the exchange of country-by-country report, which will give it a better grip on its tax laws, prevent tax eva­sion by multinational com­panies.

This is coming at a time the Federal Government has lost over $1 trillion to tax evasion by multina­tional companies .

According to Ministers of Culture and Informa­tion, Lai Mohammed; Minister of Transporta­tion, Chibuike Amaechi and Minister of Power, Housing and Works, Baba­tunde Fashola, address­ing the press at the end of Federal Executive Council, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, the FEC also approved the outline business case for development of greenfield port facilities at Badagry, Lagos State.

Lai Mohammed revealed that the whole essence of the Multilateral Compe­tent Agreement and the exchange of country-by-country report was to give the government a better grip on its tax laws and also to prevent tax evasion by multinational companies.

He said: “Where multi­national companies oper­ate in more than one coun­try, it is quite easy for them to move profit from one territory to another terri­tory, where the tax laws is very favourable to them and what has happened over the years is that the revenue companies have lost a lot of money.

“As at the last count, over $1 trillion has been lost over a period of time and the revenue compa­nies have found that they were losing more money in terms of tax evasion and avoidance than what they were even receiving as grants from multinational agencies.

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“So this is a law that pro­vides that if a company, like MTN or Nestle, for

instance, is operating in Nigeria, not only must it file returns on its activi­ties in Nigeria, it must also file returns on activities in every other country it is doing business so that you can see from there whether there is any attempt to hide figures. Apart from shoring up our finances, I think its is part of the fight against corruption and it also en­hances transparency.”

In his contribution, Fashola said: “The mul­tinational competence authority agreement is consistent with the macro-economic policy of govern­ment to fund its operation and economy with more tax income, as the prices of commodities, espe­cially oil, become more threatened.

“It would allow govern­ment to see really how much taxable revenues it has access to, especially from companies and all of that. It is for transparency and accountability on the private side of the econo­my because transparency and accountability has been focused, perhaps, a little more on the public side of our national life.

“When you look at the throughput that is com­ing from the energy of the private sector beam­ing the ray of transpar­ency and accountability on revenues that should come into the public space and be used for national development only helps to strength the economy in the long run and bring probity across board.”