Anambra State Government has blacklisted Moniepoint(a mini bank) over alleged fraudulent activities.
The state government had engaged the services of Moniepoint to assist in tax collection in the state.
But on Friday the Executive Director in charge of operations and other revenue in the state, Dr Christian Madubuko threatened banning moniepoint in the state while addressing journalists in his office.
The Commissioner spoke shortly after parading two alleged coordinators of moniepoint arrested by security men in Awka, the state capital on Friday.
He said that one of the suspects, Ndubuisi Anadi was arrested over financial rascality and removal of the state government payment system.
Madubuko said, “This issue of moniepoint is complex. You are in Anambra,and you must have heard a lot of stories about people paying their taxes,and the taxes are not reflecting in the government account.”
“So we have been asking them what has been going wrong. You can imagine that a Keke operator will pay N2,500 and only N50 will hit government account and the rest N2,450 disappears with out trace.This is fraud and we can’t accept it. .We want the money paid by Anambra indigenes used to develop the State.
” We will fight it to the end.We want the money paid by our people to be used judiciously,and used it for the purpose it was paid for.We will use these people to set example for those who would want to be funny in future.
“And I can tell you that we are cancelling instantly the services of Moniepoint in Anambra State.
He said there were lot of strange stories everywhere in the state about the activities of moniepoint in relations to taxes and “we don’t know which one is true.”
According to him,the government would want to know who configured those PoS and for what purpose and would government not get the money paid by residents.
He said the intention of the governor to digitalize the system was being sabotaged by the people within the system, adding, “We want to get this problem and treat them accordingly.”
Madubuko further said that Anadi and co woukd be charged soon.
Speaking, Anadi said the company received several notifications of the payment made by tax payers that did not reflect in government account.
According to him,it was a glitch in the system whereby transaction would hit Moniepoint platform but woukd not reflect at the Central Processing System.
When questioned about removal of government payment system, he accepted that they removed it without due notification to the government, lamenting that it was removed due to the huge loss recorded by the business owners.
He said that the company was working to resolve all pending issues.
