www.thisdaylive.com/articles/frc-religious-bodies-may-lose-non-profit-status-over-non-disclosure-of-financial-transactions-can-kicks/219474/#.VeybmOraqgk.facebook


By James Emejo and Paul Obi in Abuja

There are indications that religious
bodies, particularly churches, that are
currently registered with the Corporate
Affairs Commission (CAC) as 'Non-
Profit' organisations may be stripped of
that status and listed as profitable
entities should they fail to make their
financial transactions public.

Executive Secretary, Financial Reporting
Council (FRC), Mr. Jim Obazee, told
THISDAY in an interview that religious
institutions currently objecting to making
their financial conducts public were
violating sections of the CAC Act which
they had signed at the point of
registration that they would hold Annual
General Meetings (AGM) and submit
their financial conducts for public
scrutiny.

Religious bodies which felt it was wrong
to compel them to disclose their
accounts publicly are currently in court
against the FRC to seek redress.
But Obazee insisted the churches did
not have strong grounds not to make
their financial statement public.
He said: "You have to render
stewardship and that's our major
challenges with the churches. We are
insisting that non-profit organisations
should prepare their accounts and send
to us and churches are in court fighting
us.
"But we are wondering why ordinarily,
people who are teaching you how to
account to God, how you run your life,
are refusing to account to stakeholders
how they managed funds that are
received from people who believe in the
objectives that they are pursuing."

According to the FRC boss: "Government
business is to protect its citizens and
citizens are the ones putting money in
all these non-profit organisations and
so we want to know how accountable
they are. And if they pursue non
charitable activities like running schools,
hospitals, airlines and all of that, we
want them to account for those ones
separately."

He said: “Organisations that are talking
of not bringing their accounts now are
churches-religious organisations; but
they don't really have a very strong
platform to stand on. We will do one
more workshop to educate them and
then.. we are government institutions,
we will call on the Corporate Affairs
Commission to start delisting them.
"They are registered with the Corporate
Affairs Commission because if you are
registered with the Corporate Affairs
Commission under part C as a not-for-
profit organisation and you refuse to be
accountable, there are issues there. This
is because when they do their
registration, they indicated in the
registration document they give to CAC
that they'll be holding annual general
meetings and presenting to their
members audited financial statements."
He said: “So if they refuse to prepare
their accounts, and we lay this before
the CAC, they'll delist them and once
they delist them, they cease to be not
for profit, they become with profit and
so every of their collections will now be
subject to tax."

However, the Christian Association of
Nigeria (CAN) said there was an
underground plan to target the Nigerian
church by government.
Speaking to THISDAY, CAN Director of
National Issues, Sunday Oibe, explained
that the plan to target the church was
not new neither was it a hidden agenda
by the government.
"Any non-profit making organisation
that engages in business outside its
mandate should be accountable. At the
same time, it is not new that this
government is targeting the church.
"We are not unmindful of the grand plot
to target the church. Why is the church
now the target?" Oibe asked.

He stated that "nobody should deceive
this government to fight the church.
People should be careful.
"It is not a strange thing; we have it on
good authority that there are persons in
this government that think that this is
the time to fight the church. The church
cannot be gagged," CAN director of
national issues maintained.
Oibe said: "Under any law or authority,
nobody can fight the church. Many
people had tried it before and they had
their fingers burned. Anybody who
wants to fight the church in Nigeria will
have his fingers burned," he submitted.
CAN National Legal Adviser, Barr Albert
Uko, in a separate interview, informed
THISDAY that some churches had
approached the court to challenge the
FRC move?
Uko stated that CAN was "looking at the
issue; we have not concluded, the
matter is still in court. Some churches
have already gone to court."

Also speaking, an elder of the Northern
CAN arm, Evang. Mathew Owojaiye
said CAN had had several meetings with
the government but the issue of striping
churches of non-profit making status
and taxing them was never on the table.

Just a must.


This people have be swindling us and the government for millennia now. We ain't gonna take it anymore.


Since the church is a multi trillions dollar industry, why the hell mustn't they pay their due tax. Afterall gullible citizens are paying their due tithe, even more to the church.