Corruption has been identified as one of the major causes of Nigeria’s state of inadequate development. Bothered about its effects on all aspects of the economy, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has recommended a beneficial ownership register (BOR) as an elixir. CHINAKA OKORO reports
Before the 2015 general elections, Nigerians were desirous of a leader with strong will and character to confront corruption which was, then, seen as endemic. When President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), were campaigning and promising Nigerians that they would deal with corruption and other forms of societal ills, all other candidates and parties did not matter to them. This was because; they wanted a man of strong character.
That informed the overwhelming votes he and his party received at the general elections.
In the circumstances, President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015 on the back of two crucial mantras; namely to improve the security of lives and property of Nigerians and to revive the fight against corruption.
Pundits maintain that President Buhari has some points for which he can claim to have recorded some tangible progress on the war against graft.
In a bid to succeed in his commitment to reducing corruption, in the country, his administration has collaborated with the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), and some countries in the Middle East to take in for questioning some public officials who were said to misappropriated public funds. Those funds and or assets were seized from such public officials that are suspected to have laundered the illicit funds and ploughed them back into the economy country’s economy.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which is the country’s foremost anti-corruption agency has also become more active, by launching a series of investigations into former high-ranking public officials from previous administrations, in particular, former cabinet officials, state governors and senior civil servants.
Various properties acquired through several corrupt means had also been retrieved from convicted public office holders, individuals and going concerns.
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) also known as Transparency International-Nigeria (TI-N) with support from the Tax Justice Network -Africa (TJNA) has been keeping tabs on the government’s efforts to rid the country of sleaze.
It has also been monitoring developments after the Beneficial Ownership (BO) disclosure commitment of the Federal Government with regard to the 2016 London Anti-Corruption Summit and the Open Government Partnership Initiative.
The foregoing dominated discussions around the importance of a Beneficial Ownership Register (BOR) in the war against corruption at a seminar with the theme “The Anti-Corruption Potential of the Beneficial Ownership Register” which was organised by CISLAC on Wednesday, September 15, 2021, at the Citi Heights Hotel, Lagos.
Leading the conversation, the Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani revealed that transparency of ownership and control of companies, partnerships, trusts, and other legal entities that can hold assets and open bank accounts are critical to the ability to determine where illicit funds are moving to and who is moving them.
He said: “The Federal Government has made significant progress in the implementation of the beneficial ownership transparency as indicated by the signing of the Companies and Allied Matters (Amendment) Act, 2020 and the ongoing process towards the establishment of a central register for disclosure of all corporate entities in the country that would subsume and complement the beneficial ownership register for the extractive sector companies already established by the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in December 2019.”
He also said that while the rapid uptake of beneficial ownership is significant, the quality, accuracy, and utility of the data for its intended purpose of curbing Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) are dependent on the right legislative framework in place and the data conforming to the beneficial open data standards (BODS).
He noted that the capacity of the tax and Customs authorities, policing and prosecution authorities, the mandatory clause on beneficial ownership information to be provided when companies are incorporated or trusts registered, and the presence of a mandate to ensure that information provided by any entity is every so often updated and on a regular basis among others, have the capacity to hamper the effective implementation of the initiative regardless of how good its intentions are.
He also identified “enforcement ability to ensure that information is placed on the publicly accessible platforms and modalities to verify declared information and false declarations, which should result in robust penalties,” as other challenges.
“Beneficial ownership and the more general issue of money laundering is not only a Nigerian or African problem. But as long as inefficiency and the lack of political will to sanitise our systems persist, consequences in the form of terrorism financing, transnational organised crimes, tax evasion and illegal enrichment of politically exposed people will prevail,” Rafsanjani said.
Continuing, Rafsanjani said: “We, therefore, advocate identifying a verification process that ensures people in the official register are authentic, indicating that they are who they say they are, authorised- that is those people have agreed to be involved in a legal entity, and that all the registered data are valid.”
The CISLAC boss maintained that the process should be a fully-automated information technology system with human supervision that will have access to relevant data, held by national and foreign authorities for cross-checking, adding that the advanced analysis could be managed by the NEITI or another body that has experience with data analysis, such as financial intelligence units or tax authorities.
To make the system work as envisaged, he opined that “we must deploy an approach that clearly defines roles and responsibilities of various relevant stakeholders in defending the system or preventing misuse.”
The Registrar-General and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Alhaji Garba Abubakar said Nigeria has begun the implementation of the Beneficial Ownership Disclosure since January 3, 2021.
According to him, the process was delayed till 2021 from 2016 when President Buhari made commitments to the anti-corruption summit in London, due to the absence of a legal framework to back it up.
“The Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 was re-enacted and it currently provides for mandatory disclosure of people with relevant control. The CAC is the agency responsible for giving effect to the provisions of this new law.
“Since January 3, the CAC has deployed an electronic register that covers all aspects of our registration services, which include the disclosure of beneficial owners,” he said.
Abubakar said from January 3 till date, every company registered with the CAC has been mandated to disclose its beneficial owners at the point of registration, and whenever there is any change in the information or at point of filing of annual returns.
“For a new company registered from January 3 till date, the information is available on www.pre.cac.gov.ng. “Click on any company registered from January 3 till date; one can view that information at no cost,” Abubakar said.
He further disclosed that for companies registered earlier than that date, legacy companies, the disclosure will start from their next financial annual returns and that depends on the financial-end-of-year of each company.
“The essence of this is to entrench transparency and support the anti-corruption initiatives of the government, such that as a citizen, if one has reasons to believe that the information in the portal is not actually a true reflection of the ownership of the company, one can escalate this information and report to relevant agencies for investigation,” he stated.