A Private Firm Linked to APC National Leader Earns $19m Monthly Revenue in Lagos

 

A consulting firm named AlphaBeta consulting LLP is said to earn 19 million dollars monthly from the Lagos state government as 15% service charge for collecting IGR involving computing, tracking and reconciliation of the state’s account.

Olabode George (Rtd.) who is also a former Deputy National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party and an outstanding political figure in Lagos disclosed this today on a live broadcast in a national private tv station.

George who described as sacrilegious the collection of internally generated revenue in Lagos state by a private firm, has called on the state government to block all forms of revenue leakages.

“There are so many leakages in the Lagos State Government purse. Take this AlphaBeta; who owns this AlphaBeta? What is the essence of the AlphaBeta? Where else in the world would you have an Inland Revenue Service, who have their own staff who are supposed to go out and collect the fees, but you have an independent company to be supposedly collecting the internally generated revenue from our state?

And continuing he said, “It grosses around N50bn (about $130m) a month and you know how much the company (AlphaBeta) is paid 15% of it, that’s N7.5bndays going to the company, that is a leakage, that is sacrilegious.”

Earlier, a former Managing Director of the Consulting firm, Oladapo Apara, had said the firm got over N150 billion as 10 per cent commission for “computing, tracking and reconciling” Lagos State’s Internally Generated Revenue since the year 2000.

Apara had claimed as well that the consulting firm, which was established in 2000, is being operated by a former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, through proxy.

George who had earlier called for the permanent dismantling of the Lekki tollgate along the Lekki-Epe expressway and Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge believed to be associated with the APC leader by a significant number of Lagosian, again re-echoed his stance and said; “this tollgate has been going on for years now, you know how much they gross averagely a day and in a year, that would have paid off for that road” and proposed that a monument should be erected in honour of those who reportedly died in the shooting of #EndSARS protesters last Tuesday.

George criticized Tinubu and his children for “unjustifiably” controlling and having access to top state positions and businesses. “His son Seyi controls the whole signage for Lagos. Everybody who wants to put up an advert on any signboard you go to his company alone, is that justifiable, does that make any sense and you think people will not know.’’

“The first shopping mall, which was a pride to all of us in Lagos was constructed by Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson during his tenure, they demolished it, you know what is there now, Seyi Tinubu is keeping his private personal horses there, where is that pride, where has our heritage gone,” he posited.