Osun Govt Seals Dangote Quarry Over N1.5bn Tax Default

Osun State government on Thursday sealed a quarry belonging to the company of the richest African man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.

The quarry located at Ajebandele, Ayedaade local government area of the state was sealed for alleged N1.5bn tax default by the company.

The exercise was initially resisted by some armed private local security operatives suspected to be members of Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) who were allegedly shooting sporadically to scare way the officials of the Osun Internal Revenue Service.

Among the tax enforcement team was the Special Adviser to Governor Rauf Aregbesola on Taxation, Mr Gbenga Akano.

CityMirrorNews gathered that the company has been allegedly evading tax since it started operation on the land many years ago.

Akano said the company was owing about N1.5 billion tax.

He said several letters have been written to the company but yielded no result.

He added that the private security operatives allegedly shot at the officials of the IRS, seized their phones and gadgets and harassed them.

According to Akano, the phones and gadgets of the officials were seized and they were harassed by the OPC members

He said though the belongings of officials of the IRS seized by the OPC members were later recovered.

Expressing the state government readiness to clamp down on all illegal mining operators and taxes evaders in the state, Akano said the Dangote quarry has remained adamant to offset the tax amounting to 1.5 billion naira.

He said the company left the State government with no any other option than resulting to shutdown the site, after several meeting held with management on the modality for the payment proved abortive.

Akano further stated that recovery exercise would be a continuous one and would be extended to other companies and corporate as well as non corporate companies that found guilty of owing the state government taxes.

“They are operating on our land unlawfully. Although, we leant that the company is paying into the purse of Ogun state government while operating on Osun land, I think this is not fair and I am assuring you that there is no boundary dispute with Ogun State government at all on this parcel of land”




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