Mohammed Shosanya
Stakeholders in the nation’s economy have proffered ways to stop illicit financial inflows,which bleeds Nigeria a whooping $18billion annually.
They said transparency of ownership and control of companies, partnerships, trusts and other legal entities that can hold assets and open bank accounts is critical to the ability to determine where illicit funds are moving to and who is moving them.
They conveyed this in a communique issued at a two-day training organized by the Accountability in Extractive Sector (AES) Cluster in partnership with the Niger-Delta Open Government Partnership Observatory (NOGO) cluster and the Media Initiative for Transparency in Extractive Industries (MITEI),
Nigerian government marked significant progress in the implementation of beneficial ownership transparency reforms by signing the Companies and Allied Matters (Amendment) Bill 2020 into law, the launch of an Open Central Register of Beneficial Ownership (known as the Persons with Significant Control (PSC) for disclosure of all beneficial owners of corporate entities in the country and the adoption of Beneficial Ownership Data Standard for the register on 25th May 2023,they said.
According to the participants,tackling corruption and financial crimes should be seen as a multi-agency task that cannot be implemented by only one government institution.
They reasoned that these institutions also need beneficial ownership information in order to efficiently handle the investigation and prosecution of those that hold ultimate responsibility in financial and economic crimes.
They emphasized the need for wider public engagement on the existence of the Beneficial Ownership register and its relevance to extractive and corporate sector transparency and accountability.
The also stressed the need to deepen capacity of tax and customs authorities, policing and prosecution authorities, as well as the media on the use of the register is crucial as a veritable tool for tackling corruption and financial crimes.
There was also need for strategic collaborations between the CAC and relevant agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) towards collective impact.
They added:”The interoperability of data between government agencies, linked to a central procurement portal, as beneficial ownership declarations should be required of all parties entering into government contracts. Expedite process of updating and rectifying beneficial ownership information that is duplicated, inaccurate and/or incomplete in the register”
They also suggested the need to deploy an approach that clearly defines roles and responsibilities of various relevant stakeholders in defending the system or preventing misuse.
Participants were acquainted with the concept of beneficial ownership (BO) and the basis for existing complexities in different types of company ownership structures and associated risks.
They were further equipped with skills and tools to identify and analyse BO data with other publicly available information to inform their investigations, advocacy analyses and journalistic reportage.
