Nigeria taxman seeks $4.3 billion from John Ugbe-led MultiChoice, moves to block accounts

The Nigerian Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) announced July 8 that it has instructed banks to freeze the accounts of MultiChoice Africa and its Nigerian subsidiary for breaching agreements and denying access to their records for auditing, Intelligentcio reported.

According to the report, the taxman has required local banks to recover N1.8 trillion ($4.3 billion) in outstanding tax obligations from MultiChoice Africa and MultiChoice Nigeria.

“It was discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements and undertakings with the service, they would not promptly respond to correspondences, they lacked data integrity, and are not transparent as they continually deny FIRS access to their records,” FIRS stated.

However, the media company debunked allegations that it defaulted on tax payments in the said amount, The Street Journal reported. The company stated that FIRS did not notify it of the claims and that it is prepared to comply with tax law.

“We have read the media reports and the statements made by the Federal Inland Revenue Service,” MultiChoice stated. “MultiChoice Nigeria has not received any notification from FIRS. We respect and are comfortable that we comply with the tax laws of Nigeria.”

MultiChoice Africa is a digital media entertainment firm and a subsidiary of South Africa’s MultiChoice Group, which provides digital satellite TV and other streaming entertainment services.

The company operates DStv, a major service in Sub-Saharan Africa, and GOtv, a minor service operating in more than nine countries in the region, as well as Showmax.

John Ugbe heads the company’s Nigeria operations as its CEO.

While MultiChoice seeks to settle the problem amicably with the Nigerian state agency, an insider who spoke on conditions of anonymity said: “Someone somewhere in FIRS has made an embarrassing error which we would amicably resolve with the agency.”