EFCC frustrating business expansion plans —Innoson

The Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company (IVM) has said plans to expand its business operations have suffered a great setback over litigations against the company.

It said the company planned to upgrade from 10,000 cars production capacity annually to 60,000, and upgrade from manual production to automated production, but a recent charge filed by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) at a Lagos High Court was frustrating the efforts.

Speaking at a news conference in Lagos on Wednesday, the company’s Head, Corporate Communications, Cornel Osigwe, who made the disclosure, noted that the company’s workers could no longer perform their duties optimally over fear of being harassed.

“The fact of the matter is that there has been an abuse of court process by the EFCC over a business disagreement between IVM and Guaranty Trust Bank which started in 2013,” he alleged.

“This same case instituted by the EFCC is still pending at the Federal High Court, Lagos and at the Court of Appeal, Lagos.

“Recently, the same EFCC filed a fresh charge of the same case and allegation at the Lagos High Court. This is clearly an abuse of court process by the EFCC.

“Innoson is contesting that the Lagos High Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the suit and not afraid of arraignment or running away from the court. He is saying that he must be arraigned through due process of the law,” he said.

In 2017, Innocent Chukwuma, the Chairman of IVM, was arrested over a N2.4 billion alleged fraud involving Guaranty Trust Bank.

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The bank had allegedly issued some credit facilities worth N2.4 billion to Innoson Motors, the loans represented part-finance and working capital for the importation of new motorcycles, motorcycle spare parts, agriculture machinery spare parts and plastic manufacturing equipment.

Under the loan terms agreed by Dr. Chukwuma on behalf of Innoson, proprietary interest in the imported items was exclusively that of the bank, indicating the bank would hold ownership of the items until conditions in the agreement are reached.

Dr. Chukwuma, however, seeked ownership of the items, but the bank declined as the agreement was yet to be reached.

In 2011, the bank noticed that the items were procured by the company without her consent, claiming the company had forged the documents to lay claims to the imported goods which were in the bank’s name.

This led the bank into reporting the case to the Nigerian Police. Investigations and forensic examinations of signatures in the documents revealed signatures of the bank’s staff were forged to fraudulently clear the goods from the ports.

The EFCC arrested Dr. Chukwuma over the claim but he accused the Commission and GTBank of conspiring with some unnamed foreign entities to bully Nigeria’s only indigenous auto manufacturing company out of business.

 

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