The Gambia Revenue Authority has on Monday shutdown Semlex a Belgian-based Gambia biometric company over tax arrears.
Semlex is the only biometric company so far producing national documents like Identity cards, passports, driving licenses, voter cards, and residential permits in the country, but it has been alleged by the revenue authority of default of tax arrears.
Sources closed to this medium disclosed that SEMLEX was closed due to the Company’s default in paying tax to the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA), disclosing that the powers to close down the Company was derived from Section 215 of the Income and valued added tax.
The Belgian company was awarded the contract to produce Gambian documents by the government of The Gambia in 2018 amid huge controversies anchoring on the credibility of the Company. Its offices were ransacked in Belgium by police investigators who accused the company of money laundering and trafficking.
In 2018 The Gambian government came under fierce attacks from citizens both home and abroad for awarding the production of national documents to SEMLEX without due processes. SEMLEX also accused of failing to participate in the bidding process that was launched by government but yet awarded the contract.
Yankuba Darboe, Commissioner General Gambia Revenue Authority was quote in an interview with Chronicle Newspaper as saying “Currently we closed them [Semlex] due to their failure of settling their tax situation. They have been in the operation for close to two years now and the impression they gave us was that they will have a Special Investment Certificate (SIC) that will exempt them from the payment of corporate and other taxes,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle.
Due to this, Darboe said the GRA had extended their deadlines repeatedly covering months just to give them time to acquire the SIC though this was never materialized.
“We have given them an extension for the first six months and they could not get that certificate. We gave them another three months, we went ahead to give them another three months again, up to this period.”
After the final extension, he said the GRA ordered them to do their own self-assessment and give them their tax liability for auditing.
“Now, we told them that the fact that they could not be issued the SIC, come forward and pay. We cannot continue with extension and I believe, now it’s time to take action because we know that there is a law in the country, that nobody is above the law and we should all respect the law,” he told The Chronicle.
Given that Semlex is contracted by the central government, and working closely with the Gambia Immigration Department, the GRA is expecting no reaction from these stakeholders on their decision.
Darboe argued that the process of being issued the SIC cannot take more than six months, while the committee that issues the certificate includes the government itself.
“I know that, if they had met the criteria, they would have gotten the certificate a long time ago because the writings are already on the wall. You are supposed to get something three months into your starting and you couldn’t get it in two years, that means you have not met the criteria of that particular certificate. In this circumstance, I don’t think there is much other stakeholders can say.”
“The only thing for them [Semlex] to do is to come forward and settle their taxes like any other person. If you have a business in this country, the best thing is to make sure that you fulfil your tax obligations. If you don’t do this, we will get to you one day and that might not be a very good thing,” he warned.
The GRA boss has strongly advised business owners across the board to pay taxes to avoid closures, stating that, they only close businesses when they are pushed to the wall.
He urged businesses to ensure that they visit them for the payment plan arrangements if they are encountering difficulties in a one-off payment.
Semlex has a checkered history in Africa, tarnished by previous deals with dodgy regimes or ministers. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Reuters wrote that an associate of President Joseph Kabila earned $60 for each biometric passport the company produced. The money was paid to a Dubai-based company linked to Semlex. In 2015, all shares in this company were transferred to the same associate of the Kabila family.
Semlex has denied the charges publicly but would not respond to OCCRP’s questions. The deal ultimately lead to a raid by Belgian police on the company’s headquarters in Brussels. A spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor explained that the action concerned “possible money laundering and corruption,” according to a Reuters report.
In the Comoros, more than 100 Iranians, including some executives from the oil and mining industries who may themselves have been under international sanctions, fraudulently received passports manufactured by Semlex. The country cancelled the passports soon after.
The affair raised alarm within the Comoros government, Interpol and the International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets regional standards for passports and other identification cards.