StarTimes and NTA Accused of Multi Billion Naira Fraud

StarTimes and NTA have been accused of an alleged fraud over failure to disclose records and disburse funds to government coffers from joint business.

The Chinese Pay-TV company StarTimes runs its cable business in Nigeria under a Joint Venture called NTA-STAR TV Network with the Nigerian Television Authority signed in 2010 which is expected to yield dividends for the Nigerian government through the NTA investment in the joint agreement.

However, the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning on Friday raised an alarm over an alleged cover up and absence of such dividends in the record books of the NTA, TheConscience reports.

The joint Senate Committee uncovered the anomalies while scrutinizing the spending and expenditure of the Nigerian Television Authority for 2021 with the details of the 2021-2023 MTEF & FSP documents,

The Senate panel said it was stunned to find out that the multi-billion naira deal with StarTimes was not reflected anywhere in the documents submitted to it as presented by the Director-General, Mallam Mohammed Yakubu.

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It also querried why StarTimes Pay TV was not separately licensed by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, NBC.

The suspicious Senate panel demanded to see records of what NTA generates from production, adverts and documentaries, as well as his comprehensive records of debt profile with dates and approval authorizations.

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Irked by absence of StarTimes and NTA proceeds in the records, the Senate panel ordered that henceforth all revenue generating agencies of government should remit all their earnings into the Consolidated Revenue Funds out of which their cost of collection will be given to them. This, the panel said will shore up revenue for government as well as block wastages in the system.

The Senate Panel then ordered the NTA to return on Monday to the Panel.