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Mystery Group Took Millions In Furlough Funds

Mystery group took millions in furlough funds

A group of companies set up by an obscure entrepreneur received as much as £40m in furlough funds in a single month this year, despite little public evidence that the businesses have any staff.

The four companies, all registered to a virtual mailbox service in London, were paid between £20m and £40m in May from the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, according to official data published this month.

The businesses claimed to be an IT services company, a corporate charity, a research hospital and a Jain religious institute, according to official filings. All use the word “Domain” in their name.

In unaudited UK accounts, Domain Corp Ltd and Domain Foundation, the IT business and charity, say they have 50 employees each.

The Domain Corp website says its virtual mailbox address in London serves as its European “corporate headquarters”, while the other entities have little trace online. The only LinkedIn account that references any of the four companies as a current or former employer is that of 44-year-old Rajanish Garibe, also known as Rajanish Jain, who incorporated the businesses, according to Companies House records.

The Financial Times was unable to reach Garibe for comment. After attempts to reach him via phone, letter and social media, the companies filed various backdated documents at Companies House changing his name from Garibe to Jain, and removing him as a director from the entities as of 2020.

The £70bn furlough scheme was set up in response to the coronavirus pandemic and involved the UK government paying much of the wages of non-working employees in order to incentivise companies to retain them.

More than 1m businesses have used the scheme, which expires later this month. Although the full circumstances of Garibe’s companies’ claims are unclear, the government has opened thousands of investigations into possible misuse of furlough funds.

The National Audit Office in a report last year said it expected the level of fraud and error in the scheme to be “considerable” and the Treasury has estimated that fraud and error could be as high as 10 per cent of total payments.

“We cannot comment on identifiable claimants or ongoing investigations,” said HMRC in response to questions about the Domain companies’ furlough claims.

The companies — Domain Corp Ltd, Domain Foundation, Domain International School and Domain Research Hospital — each received between £5m and £10m in furlough funds in May, according to government data. In each of the previous six months, the companies had either made no claims or claims no greater than £250,000. None of the companies made claims in June.

The companies were all incorporated by Garibe from 2016 onwards. Until this week he was listed as a director and person with significant control for all four. The entities are registered to an address inside Moorfield Eye Hospital’s Kemp House, near east London’s “Silicon Roundabout” tech cluster at Old Street, according to Companies House.

The address is a virtual mailbox operated by Capital Office, an office services provider whose website says it helps businesses “grow without the expense and hassle of employing staff or owning your own premises or equipment”. Capital Office receptionists at Kemp House last week accepted two hand-delivered letters from the FT seeking comment from Garibe and said they would be passed on.

After the FT attempted to reach Garibe, a flurry of filings at Companies House for the four entities updated his name to “Rajanish Jain” and added as a backdated director and person with significant control a 31-year-old American named Maria James. A company incorporated by James, Technotic Corporation, is also listed as a director and person with significant control for the entities.

James’ and Technotic’s address was given as suite 8 at 59 St Martin’s Lane, in London’s Covent Garden, the location of another serviced office provider. When the FT visited last week on two separate days to deliver a letter, no one answered the door to the suite and the building’s reception was unstaffed.

Domain Corp filed its 2020 accounts as a micro-entity, a status reserved for very small companies that must qualify by meeting two of three standards: a turnover of under £632,000, 10 employees or fewer and assets of less than £316,000. The accounts do not state revenues but claim that the company has £7.8m of assets and 50 employees.

In its 2019 unaudited accounts, Domain Corp lists its sales as exactly £85,000, the threshold at which companies must register with the government for value added tax purposes.

The company’s websites — domaincorp.ltd and domainllc.us — show little sign of actual trading. Each uses a template for a “IT services company website” from Wix.com, the website building service. The company’s tagline, “secure IT Solutions​ for a more secure environment”, is the same as the tagline on the Wix template, as are the “client” logos. Parts of the websites include unedited filler text from Wix.com, such as “I’m a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me.”

Aa reference to Domain Corp Ltd on the websites was changed to refer to another entity, Domain Corporation Ltd, which Garibe incorporated in June 2021 and is also registered to the Kemp House mailbox. The domaincorp.ltd website subsequently went offline.

Domain Foundation, Domain Research Hospital and Domain International School also count similarly named entities registered in Washington DC and New York as corporate directors. There is also a New York-registered Domain Corporate LLC.

The address on the Washington DC company registry for Domain Research Hospital Inc and Domain International School Inc is occupied by an office supplies shop that offers PO boxes and whose front window was smashed when the FT visited last week. The official business registry does not publicly state any specific PO box number for either company. Staff at the shop declined to accept a letter containing journalistic enquiries unless a PO box number was provided.

Domain Foundation Inc and Domain Corporate LLC in New York are registered to a residential building in Manhattan that includes on the ground floor a UPS store that offers mailbox services. Staff at the store accepted a letter but said it was unlikely to be delivered as the mailbox had not been paid for since May 18.

The Domain Corp websites include external pictures of the buildings in which its London and New York mailboxes are based, referring to them as its European and North American “corporate headquarters” respectively.

UK and US phone numbers for Domain were unanswered last week. One US number on Domain Corp’s website played a recorded message of a US hedge fund’s client briefing about Venezuela. The fund, Torino Capital, did not respond to a request for comment. There is no suggestion it had any knowledge of or involvement with the furlough monies claimed by the Domain companies.

HMRC said it was “taking tough action to tackle fraudulent behaviour” in relation to Covid stimulus schemes, adding that anti-fraud measures were built into its business support programmes.

“We have blocked tens of millions of pounds of claims being paid out in the first place and we are using the full range of our powers to recover any incorrectly paid claims,” the tax authority said, adding that it had already recovered more than £600m of overpayments and had opened more than 23,000 inquiries.

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NCAA sanctions Kenya Airways over passenger complaints

UAE

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has sanctioned Kenya Airways for several consumer-related violations involving three passengers, including one Gloria Omisore.

This is contained in a statement on Friday by Michael Achimugu, Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection.

Achimugu stated the NCAA issued a sanction letter on Wednesday to Kenya Airways regarding the passengers’ complaints

“The infractions include failure to provide care, lack of transparency in carriage terms, poor communication with the Authority, and mishandling refunds and baggage.

“In accordance with the NCAA Regulations 2023, Kenya Airways must pay fines and compensate each affected passenger with 1,000 special drawing rights.

“The airline has seven days to comply. Failure to do so will result in more severe penalties,” Achimugu said

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Nigeria repays $3.4 billion COVID-19 funding – IMF

Nigeria has repaid $3.4 billion in emergency funding it received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help the country cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic five years ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday.

IMF resident representative to Nigeria Christian Ebeke said in a statement that, as of April 30, the country had “fully repaid the financial support” it received under the Fund’s Rapid Financing Instrument, a facility that provides urgent balance of payments funding to member nations.

“Nigeria is expected to honour some additional payments in the form of Special Drawing Rights charges of about US$30 million annually,” Ebeke added.

The most recent data from the Debt Management Office shows that Nigeria last year spent $4.66 billion to service its foreign debt, of which $1.63 billion was to the IMF. (PL/REUTERS)

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IMPI rejects IMF, World Bank’s 3% economic growth forecast for Nigeria

The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) has questioned the rationale by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for downgrading its economic growth projection for Nigeria in 2025 from 3.2 percent to 3.0 percent on the back of the global oil slump.

This according to the think tank is because the Nigerian economy has not, of late, been solely about oil especially with the substantial growth in the country’s non-oil export year-on-year as a result of ongoing economic diversification and the impact of government policies.

In a policy statement signed by its Chairman Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, IMPI argued that it was more favourably disposed to the 7 percent growth forecast by Minister of Finance and Coordinating minister of the Economy Wale Edun.

It said, “In its economic outlook, the IMF downgraded Nigeria’s economic growth forecast for 2025 by 0.2 percentage points to 3.0 per cent, down from 3.2 per cent, while growth for 2026 was also revised downward by 0.3 percentage points to 2.7 per cent.

“The IMF justified this forecast by citing projected lower global oil prices as a significant risk to the country’s fiscal and external balances. We wonder how a single factor can be responsible for the projected massive decline in the size of an economy, moreso, when Nigeria is moving away from its dependency on crude oil earnings.

“However, the World Bank’s projection, on the other hand, offers a more optimistic view. In its report, the World Bank projected that Nigeria’s economy would grow by 3.6 per cent in 2025, building on an estimated 3.4 per cent expansion in 2024 and, thereafter, strengthening to 3.8 per cent by 2027.

“The bank credited the federal administration’s possible sustenance of economic reforms with the gradual stabilisation of the macroeconomic environment. Critical to the World Bank’s projection is the expected improvement in the performance of the non-oil sectors, mainly services such as financial services, telecommunications, and information technology, as well as easing inflationary pressures and improved business sentiment.”

IMPI also argued that it was not unusual for countries to pick holes in IMF’s projections while citing the examples of Mexico and Zambia where it was proved wrong.

“IMF’s GDP data discrepancies are not unique to Nigeria. At different times, its country members worldwide have had cause to dispute the body’s projections on various grounds. Mexico, for instance, has also disagreed with the IMF on its forecasts.

“In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecasted a 0.3 per cent contraction in Mexico’s economic growth for 2025, down from the Fund’s January forecast of a 1.4 per cent expansion, as U.S. tariffs bite into exports.

“In dismissing the IMF’s forecast, the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum declared, “We do not know what it is based on. We disagree. We have our economic models, which the finance ministry has, that do not coincide with this projection.”

“She added that public investments would prevent the economy from contracting. She touted her government’s “Plan Mexico,” an effort to boost domestic industry amid tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on some imports from Mexico.

“From the foregoing, it is clear why Nigerians should not take the recent IMF’s negative economic projections very seriously. Experience has shown that several IMF projections on developing economies, such as ours, often prove inaccurate.

“In 2008, the IMF predicted that Zambia would be hit by the fall in copper prices during the financial crisis. The IMF was proven wrong as the Zambian economy survived the global downturn.

“We find comfort in the submission of the US Department of State, which described Nigeria as an economic miracle while commending the federal government’s ongoing reforms,”IMPI added.

On concerns by both the World Bank and IMF on poverty in Nigeria, the think tank posited that the incumbent federal administration is better placed than its predecessors to tackle the issue.

“We acknowledge the concerns the World Bank and the IMF raised about the limited impact of the policies on reducing poverty among everyday Nigerians.

“But the truth is that before 2023, the country had been a site for endemic poverty, with the number of people living in absolute poverty defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, healthcare and shelter, reaching a high of 99,284,512 people in 2010, about 60.9 per cent of the population at that time.

“In 2004, NBS estimated the poverty rate to be 54.7 per cent in 2004 and this was despite Nigeria experiencing economic growth, with crude oil prices ranging between $100 and $120 per barrel and a daily production of 2.3 million barrels.

“When the dynamics of the years, especially the oil boom era between 2010 and 2014, are compared to the evolving characters of the present-day economy, we see sufficient indicators of the impact on the average Nigerian in the near term.

“In other words, if there is ever a possibility of reducing the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line, it is under the current federal administration.

“For instance, the recently released Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) March 2025 economic report indicated continued expansion in economic activities across Nigeria. The composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), at 52.3 percentage points, indicates economic expansion for the third consecutive month in 2025,” it concluded.

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