The Nigeria revenue service has said it had instructed banks to freeze the accounts of digital media entertainment firm MultiChoice Africa and its Nigerian subsidiary for breaching agreements and denying access to their records for auditing.
The firms are part of South African-based MultiChoice Group, which provides digital satellite television and other streaming entertainment services across Africa.
The banks would have to recover ₦1.8-trillion naira (US$4.3 billion) in outstanding tax obligations from MultiChoice Africa and MultiChoice Nigeria, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) said in a statement.
“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,” the tax agency said.
MultiChoice Group said it would issue a statement soon. A representative of its Nigerian subsidiary could not immediately be reached by phone for comment. — Reported by Camillus Eboh, (c) 2021 Reuters
