By Egufe Yafugborhi

WARRI—THE Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, yesterday shut down two oil servicing firms in Warri, Delta State, over alleged tax default running into hundreds of millions of Naira.

The agency’s enforcement team, led by Ruth Mandeun, first sealed Bredero Pipelines Services at Sedco Road, Uvwie Local Government Area of the state with tax arrears to the tune of N178,638,649.90.

The FIRS enforcers, however, only met a team of policemen guarding a deserted company premises which the policemen claimed had been shut to operations for more than three years following “a court injunction restraining the workers or management from working at the company pending the determination of the litigation between management and staff.”

The situation was, however, different at JAD Construction, on Enerhen Road, where the FIRS team evicted all workers and management on site before sealing off the company premises for un-remitted taxes of over N400 million since 2013.

Efforts by one of the company executives simply identified as Mr. Ben, to present some tax clearance documents as proof of payment were rebuffed by the enforcement team, which insisted that they had a duty to seal off the premises unless there was verifiable proof of payment of the said arrears.

“These defaulters had the option of clearing the arrears to avoid being sealed off even at the point we came in. Now, they still have a duty to settle the debt to get unsealed. If they fail to settle the arrears or attempt to operate under FIRS lock and key, we have other measures of enforcement against them,” the team leader said.