Some more desperate media
PR courtesy Femi Kayode (Borishade the 2nd).
I think this guy wasc definitely embarassed by his hasty remarks about a "bomb" on the Bellview flight...Otherwise he wouldn't attempt ANOTHER media chest-beating exercise. I mean come on, half a billion dollars in unpaid airline taxes? That's almost unbelievable!
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FG Accuses Foreign Airlines of $500m Tax Evasion
This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
December 5, 2006
Posted to the web December 5, 2006
By Andy Ekugo
Abuja
The Federal Government yesterday accused foreign airline operators of defrauding the country to the tune of $500 million through tax evasion.
Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode disclosed in Abuja that this was done through non-registration of the companies at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
According to him, "we discovered that quite a number of them have not even registered with the CAC in order to avoid having to pay tax. They are making so much money. They should pay us some tax. If our planes fly into their countries without paying tax, they will simply hold the plane".
He, however, stated also that the Federal government has written them to register and to pay their taxes adding "and if they refuse, we will sanction them".
The minister added that, "There is a backlog of $500 million in form of taxes owed by these foreign airline operators".
He stated that Lufthansa makes 60 per cent of its international profit from the Nigerian route, and that it was only fair if the company pays what is due the Nigerian people.
He also said there is no iota of truth in rumours that the explosive billed for the Bellview flight were fire crackers, challenging anybody who claims that to prove it.
Stating that only God averted what would have happened that day on the flight, he explained that "A week before we intercepted these combustible, dangerous and illegal material, there was another incident whereby illegal, combustible material in the same way, were placed in a plane by a courier company in Abuja.
"The courier company's staff who were supposed to have checked the cargoes - maybe they checked and didn't care, because their relatives were not on the plane - placed these materials on the plane here in Abuja.
"The Managing Director of Belleview is here to confirm it. Nobody knew what was in it. Because once a courier company says it is all clear, then you don't open it. That was the practice before now. That had been the practice.
"You just assume he was telling you the truth. They put these materials on the plane. And they got to Lagos. When they got to Lagos, it became clear to the Bellview people that there was something wrong - because the boxes had started expanding. So they opened them. In the cause of that, they found illegal combustible materials. It is illegal in the sense that they were not supposed to be on that flight. Because the pressure mechanism has triggered off the mechanism within these material. And they were expanding.
"Give that flight another 45 minutes in the air. Or if that flight had been delayed or has been hovering over Lagos, that plane would have exploded. That plane would have come down. You don't have to have a high density bomb in the plane to make it dangerous", he said.
On whether the cargo intercepted from Dickson were bombs or mere crackers, he fumed and asserted that they were dangerous materials that could have brought the plane down, and challenged those who said they were mere crackers to prove it otherwise.
"On the nature of these combustibles, you don't need a bomb to bring down an aircraft. These are combustible materials, which under Aviation laws are not allowed to be placed on planes. These are even increasingly worse when the person that was placing the materials on the plane refused to get in the plane, but paid somebody N2000 to dump these things and leave.