Senate Probes CBN Over N20trn Unremitted Stamp Duties

The senate has directed its committee on finance to investigate the alleged non-remittance of over N20 trillion stamp duty into the federation account by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Ekohotblog gathered that the decision to probe the non-remittance of stamp duties was reached sequel to the consideration of a motion on “The need to improve Internally Generated Revenue of the Federal Government of Nigeria through non-oil revenue”.

The resolution to undertake the probe followed a motion sponsored by Ayo Akinyelure, senator representing Ondo central who said that the Central Bank had in January 2016, issued a circular directing all banks and financial institutions to charge stamp duty of N50 on lodgments into current accounts against revenue projections by the Federal Government of N2.5 trillion annually.

Senator Ayo Akinyelure said the apex bank and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBBS) failed to remit the money into the federation account.

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“The Central Bank of Nigeria and NIBBS have technically refused to comply with the presidential directives for the recovery of over N20 trillion revenue into the coffers of government,” he said.

“The CBN and NIBSS deliberately failed to cooperate and comply with the directives of Mr. President for the realization of over N20 trillion revenue due from stamp duties collected for 2013 to 2016 and subsequently over N5 trillion minimum revenue due to be collected annually to the federation account to be shared among states of the federation for infrastructural and economic development.

“The senate must consider whether the target N20 trillion fund is being recycled into private banks when federal government had directed its recovery.

“Section 111 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) has empowered all 36 state attorney-generals and commissioners for justice to shut-down any banking operation nationwide for ‘summary recovery’ of stamp duty revenue accruing to them by a further provision of Sections 163 of the same constitution, and we should not fail in our collective role as senators of the federal republic of Nigeria to stem the looming crisis for our various constituencies and the nation in general.”

Senate President Ahmad Lawan said the collection of stamp duty would improve when the finance bill takes effect in 2020.

“I was under the impression that we had over N20 trillion somewhere. It will interest you to know that we don’t even have N1 trillion,” he said.

“What has happened is because those that are supposed to collect the stamp duties were taking advantage of the non-electronic transaction.”

“With the passage of the finance bill, this is an opportunity we have to start getting what ordinarily should go to the government.

“The banks and many private organizations have taken advantage of the way the stamp duties have been.

“I want to believe that from January 2020, when the Finance Bill will start being effective, the stamp duty collection will be significantly improved.

“It is for our Finance Committee to monitor closely what the collection should be.

“We have also come up with another idea of engaging all the revenue-generating agencies on a quarterly basis.

“We have got already a list of all of them from the Federal Ministry of Finance. We will put them into maybe four groups, and the first meeting for evaluation of their collection will be sometime in March.

“We would like to know in the first quarter how much they have collected, and if they have not met targets; if they have met targets, how do we do better than that? The idea is not to slow agencies to do whatever they want.”