Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) today stormed the head office of the Dangote Group in Lagos State.
They were searching for documents containing the forex allocations to the company during the tenure of Godwin Emefiele as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), according to a source in the company.
The source said, the operatives of the anti-graft agency requested documents on forex transactions with the CBN.
Recall that in November 2023, the company was accused of being probed for alleged illegal foreign exchange deals and money laundering by the Special Investigator, Jim Obazee who was probing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the leadership of the former CBN governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele.
But the company described the allegation as “spurious and a rehash of a similar report peddled out of malice by a competitor, BUA Group, masquerading as a concerned Nigerian in 2016.”
Dangote recalled that the spurious and false story was started in 2016 and published in both BusinessDay and Leadership Newspapers, and accused the authors of the report of rejigging it to make it appear as authentic and a new development.
It was alleged in the report that about “$3billion foreign exchange sourced from the CBN were diverted to other Dangote companies outside Nigeria, a practice that encourages round tripping and effect money laundering since there is no proper documentation”.
However, in response to the allegations, the company said, “all FX purchased in respect of our African Projects expansion were fully utilised for what they were meant for. The projects for which the FX was utilised are visible for everyone to see. It is on record that some of these projects were commissioned by Nigerian top-ranking government officials and in attendance were Chief Executives of various banks, Captains of Industries, and the Presidents of the host countries supported by their Senior Government Officials.”
The company further stated that funds invested in its expansion project across African countries were legitimate capital investments in those countries and the repatriation of FX in the sum of $576 million has helped to boost foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria and stabilise the FX Market.
Besides, DIL emphasised that it had “always funded the construction of her various plants from Interbank FX Market in line with the CBN directives and relevant periodic progress reports were submitted to the banks for onward submission to the Central Bank of Nigeria.”
Giving further details, the company revealed that it repatriated over USD576,008,672.41 through various banks in Nigeria, in addition to a USD$111,968,109.38 cash swap arrangement between Dangote Cement Plc and Ethiopian Airlines; thus saving the same amount that would have been paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
