For Endurance Awolowo, a businessman based in Plateau State, his company has been held to ransom since 2023 by what he described as an “inter-agency data-sharing bottleneck”.

Awolowo is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Distrifoods Nigeria, an agribusiness that manufactures snack food products in Plateau State. 

Although the company started as a market development firm in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector in 2004, it became a legal entity in 2009, meaning it has existed for at least 15 years.

The CEO told EQ that he has been unable to renew the registration of his products since 2023 due to an issue with his Tax Identification Number (TIN) validation.

However, the genesis of his problem can be traced to November 2022 when the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) sent a notice to its clients about a new prerequisite for renewing and registering products with the agency.

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The agency stated that it had integrated its NAFDAC Automated Products Administration and Monitoring System (NAPAMS) with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) database to ensure the validation and authentication of Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) submitted by clients on the NAPAMS portal.

“As a result, all clients are advised to visit the NAPAMS portal to confirm the status of their TIN. Where it is not validated, clients are required to ensure registration of their TIN with the FIRS before 1st January 2023. Please note that clients without validated TIN would not be granted login access into NAPAMS from 1st January 2023,” NAFDAC added in a statement dated November 25, 2022, found on its website.

NAPAMS is an e-registration and data capture system that provides an online electronic medium for the application for product registration with NAFDAC and the data capture of all existing and current products approved by the regulatory body.

Awolowo said his company approached the FIRS office in Jos in late 2022 for their TIN update following the instruction from NAFDAC, having been previously issued their tax number.

“On the NAPAMS portal, NAFDAC requires that each company validates their FIRS TIN before they can proceed to perform any action on the portal,” he explained.

“This validation, first, has to be done as FIRS TIN update via a visit to the FIRS office. One will fill a form for TIN update, and when the process is completed, the company will be issued a document.”

Notice of TIN validation on the NAPAMS portal. Screenshot by: Endurance Awolowo

EQ learnt that FIRS could not update the TIN it issued to Distrifoods Nigeria because the company registration number from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the agency in Nigeria that regulates the formation and management of companies, was showing multiple entities.

“Each time we attempt to update our TIN on the FIRS TaxPro Max portal we get this message: No Record found/ RC returning multiple entities for PL 14373. Contact CAC for proper reclassification/validation,” Awolowo told EQ.

“Our TIN is not validating.”

Screenshot of the ‘multiple entities’ message. Source: Endurance Awolowo.

He said that apart from Jos, his company had visited FIRS offices in Lagos and Abuja in search of a resolution, but these visits yielded no positive outcome.

“The repercussion of not validating my TIN means my licences expired and I have not been able to renew them. If I want to validate my NAFDAC number on NAPAMS, it will show invalid because my certificate has expired,” Awolowo told EQ.

“Technically, I am out of business.”

According to the CEO, the ‘multiple entities’ notification indicates that his company’s CAC registration number has been reissued to two other businesses, making it no longer unique to his company.

He said, “Distrifoods Nigeria applied for CAC Status Update and Annual Returns, and they issued us a new registration certificate and status update showing the appropriate classification as a business name with the same registration number.”

However, when he returned to FIRS to update the TIN, the problem persisted, as it kept directing his company to the CAC for proper reclassification or validation.

“All efforts to reach the CAC customer service have proved abortive since December 2022. We had to engage them on X and tagged the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC),” Awolowo said.

PEBEC is the government agency responsible for removing bureaucratic and legislative constraints to doing business in Nigeria. Awolowo said the agency directed his company to report the issue to ReportGov.Ng.

EQ found that ReportGov.Ng, which is connected to PEBEC, assigns complaints to the MDA involved, and if issues are not resolved in a given time, it finds out why.

Documents sighted by EQ show that Awolowo lodged the complaint in May, but no good news has come out of it. A letter he addressed to NAFDAC’s office in Jos on December 28, 2023, which was acknowledged on January 3, was also futile.

How ReportGov.Ng works.

The letter to NAFDAC. Source: Endurance Awolowo

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“After these attempts and the bottleneck was not resolved, we approached an accredited CAC Post Registration consultant in January 2024. This was how we found that CAC had reissued our registration number to two other businesses,” Awolowo explained.

“The CAC agent advised that we register a new business as CAC cannot reissue us a new registration number, but this may invalidate our business history.”

The multiple entities. Source: Endurance Awolowo

“It is an inter-agency data-sharing problem. And we have called CAC’s customer care line several times, but it’s not going. When it goes, they will ask us to send an email. When the email is sent, no response.

“The bulk of the problem is from CAC. FIRS can’t do its job because the information provided by CAC is showing multiple entries, and I cannot access the NAPAMS portal because of this incorrect information. To validate the TIN, I need CAC to do its job. Without that, I can’t validate the TIN and I cannot use the NAPAMS portal to renew my licence.”

With this TIN validation issue, Awolowo is at risk of being penalised for late renewal of the registration of his products.

A product’s Certificate of Registration is valid for five years and must be renewed when it expires.

“I think it’s N150,000 per product, and I have about 21 products,” Awolowo told EQ. He may be forced to cough out N3.1 million for late renewal if this issue is not resolved on time.

Late renewal for MSMEs. Source: NAFDAC website

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Beyond the penalty, the NAFDAC’s registration certificate is like a marketing licence.

“It is our licence to sell. Besides the assurance of food safety, it is the licence to sell our products,” he told EQ.

“That is why if you have a product at the supermarket and it does not have a NAFDAC number, the agency can remove it from the shelf and destroy it because you don’t have a licence to sell.”

EQ emailed CAC, FIRS and NAPAMS on November 13.

CAC wrote, “A request for support has been created and assigned. A representative will follow up with you as soon as possible.” However, no follow-up email was sent.

While responding to EQ’s email, FIRS said: “Kindly advise the taxpayer to visit his or any FIRS tax office to update his Company/Business name TIN, thereafter he can proceed to validate.”

NAPAMS directed EQ to “visit the NAFDAC office close to you or send the complaint to the Director Drug Registration and Regulatory Affairs, NAFDAC, Isolo, Lagos physically or via foodregistration@nafdac.gov.ng”.

EQ sent a message to the email address on Thursday but it was neither acknowledged nor responded to.
The post CAC About to Ruin Distrifoods’ 15-Year-Old Business After Assigning Same Registration Details to Other Entities appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.