The CEO of Coscharis Group, Cosmas Maduka appeared before the House of Representatives Committee probing the NCAA/Aviation Minister’s BMW scandal.
Maduka who appeared after a presentation by First Bank officials said the scandal had taken a toll on him, and he was supposed to attend an uncle’s funeral the next day but decided not to in order to face the probe.
Maduka said: “People have spoken, different media have written, I kept quiet. Nobody has called me to ask anything. But I thank God for this opportunity to state my own side of the story.”
“People have called me from US embassy to ask when did you start money laundering.”
He added, “To the best of my knowledge, we followed all due process. We were interviewed by SSS. We were interviewed by the National Security Adviser. Every due process by law was followed. “We do business with morality.”
Responding to questions about the cost of the vehicles, another Coscharis official present at the probe said the vehicles were fitted with the highest level of armour possible, level B7. He said that after that level, the next level was applicable to military tanks.
The official said, “Armoured cars are in levels; Level B7 is the highest for any civilian/VIP armoured cars. More than that is for military tanks.
“The controversial cars are level B7. The BMW 760 series, bought by NCAA, goes for € 418,000 (N90 milion) from factory without shipping cost, taxes, etc.”
During an interview with Customs officials earlier, the House probe committee learned that Coscharis did not pay a kobo on duty on the vehicles as it declared that the vehicles were part of a batch delivered for Lagos Sports Festival and cleared by the Minister of Finance from import duty waiver.
Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, Manasa Daniel Jatau, said, “The two cars were imported through Tin Can Port 2; Imported from Antwerp Netherlands. The vehicles were cleared 19/6/2013.
“Coscharis imported the cars without paying import duties since there was a waiver from the ministry of finance. Coscharis obtained the waiver claiming the armoured cars were part of 300 vehicles imported for the Sports festival in Lagos last year, and therefore the beneficiary was Lagos state government.
“The due import duty should have been N10.1 million. The cars had an End User Certificate from the NSA office in the name of Coscharis. The waiver obtained by Coscharis was for one year; as such the time of importation this year was covered. Customs admit its laws requires that it enforces duty on any item for which waiver was obtained, which was not used for the purpose stated-in this case, for Sports festival.”