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The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, has hinted on why many companies registered and operating in the country are relocating to other African countries to operate.
Adebayo disclosed that many of these African countries lobby these Muiltinationals to their country with all kinds of offers.
The minister made this revelations when he made an appearance before the House of Representatives committee on public Accounts to answer queries raised against his Monistry and parastatals under him.
The Office of the Auditor General of the Federation has queried the ministry of Industry, Investment and Trade and some Parastatals under it over some alleged financial infractions.
Adebayo explained that the development became very worrisome and that the government and the Ministry trying his best possible to stop these multinationals from relocating to other African countries.
According to him, the neighbouring Ghana has introduced some incentives and increased capital allowances to companies which have moved to Ghana with lots of investments.
He said the government was looking for ways of increasing the level of new investment in the country and sustaining existing ones, saying “our duty is to support investment growth In Nigeria. It is public knowledge that getting these investments is increasingly becoming difficult today”.
The chairman of the House committee on public account, Rep.Busayo Oluwole Oke when briefing the visiting team from the Ministry of trade and investment, disclosed that several companies operating in the country have formed the habit of not remitting revenue to the government thereby denying them the operation of government services.
Oke said “Nigeria is bleeding. We are borrowing daily to finance our budget and the Minister of Finance has said that the reason we are borrowing is because we are not collecting the revenue we are supposed to collect.
“The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had issued some instruments which earned companies tax breaks and tax holidays. But this scheme had been abused by the companies”.