Leave us out of Abia Politics – Lloydant Business Services tell ABHA

The management of Lloydant Business Services Limited has broken their silence over the report of the Abia State House of Assembly Adhoc committees for Abia State Polytechnic and Abia State School of Health Technology Aba respectively which faulted the ICT contracts between the two state owned institutions and the management of the company and called for the quizzing of the company by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In a release by the management of the company at the weekend it urged members of the Abia State House of Assembly (ABHA) not to drag its establishment into the politics of the state.

The company contrary to the claims by the ABHA adhoc committees for Abia Polytechnic and Abia State School of Health Technology Aba, it says that all the company’s transactions followed due process, stressing that the company is tax compliant and has consistently paid all taxes required of it by law and evidence of our tax compliance were also duly provided to the respective Ad-Hoc Committees in the course of our interactions with them

Read the Text of the Press Release in full

The attention of our Company, Lloydant Business Services Limited has been drawn to a series of publications on the 9th of October, 2019 in some online blogs including;

www.abiafactsnews.com and www.abiapulse.com with the mischievous captions

“LLOYDANT BUSINESS SERVICES IS FRAUDULET, EFCC NEEDED – ABHA ADHOC

COMMITTEE REVEALS” and “LLOYDANT

BUSINESS SERVICES IS A FRAUDULENT

ORGANIZATION – ABIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY AD-HOC COMMITTEE DECLARES,

RECOMMENDS DOWNSIZING OF ABIA POLY WORK FORCE” respectively.

You will all recall that these unfounded allegations against our Company emanated from an Advertorial at page 30 of the Vanguard Newspaper of August 6, 2019 by a faceless organization with the name “Concerned Abia Youths Forum” and their equally faceless cowardly sponsors. You will also recall that we took the liberty of publishing a Rejoinder at Page 22 of the Vanguard Newspaper of 8th August 2019 where we clearly stated the facts as they truly are.

It is unfortunate that in their desperation to give our Company a bad name in order to hang it irrespective of the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing or ‘fraud’ against our Company, the faceless sponsors of this smear campaign have resumed their plot to unfairly malign our Company in the press in order to destroy our hard earned business goodwill and reputation by planting these defamatory publications in the online media purporting them to be the Reports of some Ad-Hoc Committees of the Abia State House of Assembly.

The relevant parts of the publication in www.abiapulse.com specifically stated as

follows:

“The Chairman of the adhoc committee that investigated Abia State Polytechnic Aba Hon. Barr Jerry Uzosike presented his Committee Report as follows:

That Lloydant Business Services engaged by the institution is Fraudulent that Lloydant business services refused to give the Committee the breakdown of its deduction but a source from the grapevine revealed that Lloydant Business Services engages other Financial Institutions to deduct more than the agreed fee.

RECOMMENDATIONS by the Committee:

(2) That Abia State Polytechnic ICT Contractor is not sincere (LLOYDANT), that the BIR in Abia State make investigation to know the proper Findings on the deduction.

(3) That if the House agrees, EFCC should be invited to Investigate Lloydant

(4) That the Services of LLOYDANT be Terminated with immediate effect.” (Highlight and underlining ours)

The above quoted was essentially reproduced in the publication in www.abiafactsnews.com.

A purported Report of the Abia State House of Assembly Ad-hoc Committee that

Investigated Revenue Leakages and non-payment of Salaries by the School Of Health

“Sciences and Management Technology, Aba was also circulated on WhatsApp,

Facebook and other online forums on the same date with the below stated relevant parts:

“The Chairman of the Abia State adhoc Committee that Investigated revenue leakages and non-payment of Salaries by the School Of Health Sciences and Management Technology, Aba Hon. Barr. Emeka Okoroafor in the Report said that Lloydant Business Services engaged by the institution was criminally extorting funds from the institution (highlight and underlining ours)

We have discovered that Lloydant Business Services does not pay tax to Abia State Government

RECOMMENDATION

That Lloydant Business Services should be relieved of their services to the school with immediate effect.”

“We refuse to believe that the captioned portions of the purported reports as published online could actually emanate from or form part of the Report of any Ad-Hoc or indeed any Committee of a respected House of Assembly as same are totally devoid of any substance whatsoever and are at complete variance with the realities and facts as they exist in each of the mentioned institutions which are easily verifiable.

“While it is not our intention to engage any committee of the respected Abia State

House of Assembly or the House itself in the media as we are not aware of the existence of any investigation or report of the House indicting our Company, we owe a duty to our shareholders, numerous clients and the general public who have been inundating us with calls and inquiries since these defamatory publications to clear the misconceptions.

We therefore state for the records that the correct facts are as follows:

“1. We are not aware of any investigation of our Company or its activities by the Abia State House of Assembly or any of its Committees.

 We interacted with Ad-Hoc Committees of the Abia State House of Assembly in respect of Abia State Polytechnic, Abia State University and Abia State School of Health Sciences and Management Technologies in our capacity as ICT Service providers that have subsisting Agreements with each of these institutions to provide clearly defined services at agreed terms and conditions as stipulated in each of the agreements;

“3. Out of respect and because we have nothing to hide, we provided each of the

Ad-Hoc Committees with detailed written explanations and documents detailing the scope of services rendered by our Company, the blockages of leakages in their systems and evidences of the progressive resultant increases in the internally generated revenues of each of the schools as a direct result of the services rendered by our Company.

The Committees respectively acknowledged receipt of these documents.

“4. At each of the interactive sessions, the management of the schools and the Ad-Hoc Committees commended our Company for successfully blocking the leakages that hitherto existed in the schools and increasing their respective internally generated revenue in line with terms of the Agreements.

“5. The service charge paid to our Company for the different services rendered to each institution is detailed in the Agreement(s) with the schools and not only is it in line with the industry standard, it is amongst the lowest charged in other tertiary institutions in the South-East by other service providers for similar services and it is preposterous for same to be described or referred to as “criminally extorting funds from the institution”.

“6. Each of the schools in question goes through periodic audit by internal and external auditors and there is no way any such ‘fraud’ as alleged in the purported reports could have escaped the scrutiny of these audits if indeed there was any.

“7. The financial services sector is highly regulated and in the circumstance, it is impossible for any financial institution to collude with our Company to carry out ‘fraud’ as alleged and it is therefore shocking and almost comical for such a serious allegation of crime to be established or given credence in the purported Report of a Committee of a respected House of Assembly based on “a source from the grapevine”

“8. Our Company is tax compliant and has consistently paid all taxes required of it by law and evidence of our tax compliance were also duly provided to the respective Ad-Hoc Committees in the course of our interactions with them.

“Our Company is a responsible business organization with no interest whatsoever in the politics of Abia State.

“We therefore request that the sponsors of these malicious falsehoods against our Company leave us out of whatever political scheming and shenanigans that seems to be at the root of all these attacks.

“We trust that the respected Abia State House of Assembly is conscious of the scope and limits of their investigative powers as enshrined in the Constitution and will ensure that they act accordingly and not give any credence to unsubstantiated allegations, rumors and outright falsehoods in any of their reports.

“We are confident that our Company cannot be indicted or accused of any wrongdoing in its dealings with any of our clients in Abia State.

“We have carried out our services to each of them in line with the provisions of the respective Agreements we executed and we make bold to state that any attempt to tarnish our Company’s hard earned business reputation premised on the malicious falsehood being bandied around shall fail and will be vehemently resisted.

“Our company will not succumb to the blackmail and intimidation of the sponsors of these malicious falsehoods.

“Our lawyers are currently scrutinizing the entire episode and have our instruction to utilize all legal processes available to protect and defend our corporate image and reputation and we shall ensure that we obtain substantial damages and other remedies from the sponsors of this smear campaign against our Company and their accomplices.

LLOYDANT BUSINESS SERVICES LTD