Govt arrests Moniepoint boss over ‘alleged diversion of taxes’

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Mr. Ndubuisi Anadi, the coordinator of Moniepoint in-charge of Anambra, has been arrested by the Anambra State Internal Revenue Service (AIRS).

He was arrested over alleged diversion of taxes paid by members of the public and removal of the state government payment system.

The Executive Director of AIRS in charge of Operations and Other Revenues, Dr. Christian Madubuko disclosed this in Awka after the arrest.

He also hinted that Moniepoint service may be banned in the state.

The state government had engaged the services of Moniepoint to assist in taxes collection in the state.

The arrest followed complaints that taxes paid into government account by Anambra people through the platform, did not get into the state government’s central system.

According to Madubuko, they discovered that about 1,200 taxes paid through Moniepoint were diverted and that the bank removed government payment system without any notification.

“We have been receiving complaints of people paying their taxes but hey were not reflecting.

“So, we commenced investigations and found that many payments made from one Moniepoint PoS since April this year, have not reflected in the state central system.

“The investigation is just from one PoS and we have many others across the state and you can imagine what is going on. It shows that these monies which we have their receipts were diverted.

“We have requested for the agreement between the AIRS and Moniepoint but we have not received that. What they gave us instead is the list of Moniepoint locations across the state. That is why we arrested the coordinator of Moniepoint in the state,” he said.

Dr. Madubuko further said that Anadi would be charged to court and if found guilty would face the full wrath of the law.

On his part, Anadi said the company received several notifications that payment made by taxpayers did not reflect in the government’s account.

He explained that it was a glitch in the system whereby transaction will hit Moniepoint platform but will not reflect at the Central Processing System.

“We were notified about the glitch and as at today, our tech guys are working on the issue to address the problem and find out what actually happened.

“We had resolved the glitch. The money is in government account and we are working to prove that,” he said.

When questioned about removal of government payment system, Nnadi admitted that they removed it without due notification to the government, lamenting that it was removed due to the huge loss recorded by their business owners.