On February 27th, 2013, I along with 36 other MPS contract staff received the following email invitation:

Please take note of new time.

L & G,

You are invited to an interactive engagement session aimed at discussing
various MPS contractual and performance matters.
Kindly confirm your availability and please share with those omitted in
the address list.

Venue will be advised shortly.

Kind regards,

Funmilayo

Olufunmilayo (Funmilayo) Ojo was the SNEPCo contract holder for the Midis MPS contract. The meeting was held on the 28th of February.

One of the issues discussed was that Midis had either not provided any form of tax receipt for PAYE (Pay as You Earn – Nigerian income tax) or had provided hand written tax receipts from Rivers or Delta state for as long as they had been in business.  Under Nigerian law, PAYE taxes must be paid in the state of the employees residence – we all lived in Lagos state.

Nigerian law also required that employees have a taxpayer ID number; equivalent to the US Social Security number.  No one present had even seen a Nigerian Taxpayer ID card let alone been issued one.

SNEPCo pays Midis Energy Services and the other MPS contractors the 25% PAYE tax and the MPS Contractors remit it to the Lagos State Revenue Service but without tax ID numbers, how were our individual accounts credited?