Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, May 29, 2009

MNCs and economic development in Nigeria

Many multi-national corporations (MNCs), often headquartered in South Asia and the Middle East are active in Nigeria. Some have reputations of being part of the great corruption problem. Another one of them is in trouble, again. The Vaswani brothers were deported in 2008 and are under investigation again.

N3billion Rice Scam - Prosecute, Not Persecute
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused the Vaswani brothers - Sunil, Haresh and Maresh - of defrauding the federal government of the sum of N3billion in unpaid custom duties on rice imports.

The eight companies in the Stallion Group owned and managed by the brothers were similarly accused of underpaying company taxes and the axe of forceful business closure was left to dangle above them. As if these were not enough, the EFCC chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri, accused them of engaging in expatriate quota racketing.

The Vaswani brothers have been demonized as corrupters of the business environment in Nigeria and are alleged to have strong connection to people at the top echelons of power in the land. The fact that they have been deported twice before lends credence to the old adage that there is no smoke without fire. People are wont to ask: Why the Vaswani brothers at any given moment? But whatever anyone or organization may think or infer, our laws expressly state that a suspect is considered innocent until proven guilty..."



See also: Rice Milling in Nigeria for details about one of the suspect Vaswani brothers' projects.

Stallion Group web site

Google searches for Vaswani Stallion Group and Vaswani brothers Nigeria, will display many links to further information about the scandal, the prosecutions, and the Vaswani brothers' businesses in Nigeria.

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