Reps Summon 50 Firms Over Alleged Fraudulent Payment

• Reps Summon 50 Firms Over Alleged Fraudulent Payment

Fifty more brokerage firms have been summoned by the House of Representatives over alleged multi-billion naira cash payment to government officials by insurance firms, Punch reported on Sunday.

An ad hoc committee of the House is investigating the alleged shady deals, which involved the payment of huge cash into private pockets as “insurance premium.”

The transactions took place between 2013 and 2015.

The committee, which is chaired by a member of the All Progressives Congress from Ogun State, Mr. Adekunle Akinlade, is probing allegations that government officials colluded with insurance firms to sign fraudulent policies, inflated the premium and later remitted the money to the officials.

“Cases of over-payment, non-existing contracts and wrong policy numbers are among the infractions the committee has already established,” a National Assembly official informed our correspondent in Abuja on Sunday.

Findings also revealed that as of the time they entered into the shady contracts with the MDAs, most of the insurance and brokerage firms were neither registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, nor licensed by the National Insurance Commission.

In the fresh summons signed personally by Akinlade, a copy of which was obtained on Sunday, the 50 firms were directed to produce their audited accounts for the years 2013 to 2015.

The committee noted that the accounts must be signed by audit firms.

They were also directed to submit statements “showing all government premium for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.”

In addition, the firms are to produce evidence of licensing by NAICOM for 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The summons directed the firms to also produce “PenCom, tax clearance (Federal Inland Revenue Service) and Bureau of Public Procurement certificates for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.”