The Senate has mandated its Committee
on Finance to investigate the non-remittance of over N20 trillion into the
Federation Account by Central Bank of Nigeria, an amount collected as stamp
duties from Banks and Financial Institutions in the country.
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”.
Sponsor of the motion, Senator
Ayo Akinyelure (PDP, Ondo Central), 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.
He noted that after the issuance
of the said circular by the CBN, all deposit money banks and financial
institutions effected N50 per eligible transaction in accordance with the
provisions of the Stamp Duty Act 2004 and Federal government Financial Regulations
2009.
According to him, despite efforts
by the Federal Government to recover over N20 trillion from Nigeria Inter-Bank
Settlement Systems (NIBBS) to the Federation Account, “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.”
Akinyelure added, “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 lawmaker lamented that since
the implementation of the collection of stamp duties, “accountability by banks
has not been transparent and no report by CBN or its subsidiary (NIBSS) to the
Nigerian public to know the actual revenue generated, collected and transferred
to the Federation Account.”
Akinyelure recalled that the
House of Representatives and National Economic Council had in May 2019, waded
into the matter and recommended all agencies to support the Federal Government
recovery mandate on the over N20 trillion stamp duty.
He stated that the Special
Presidential Investigation Panel on Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) and
Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) have adopted the
combined resolutions of the House of Representatives and National Economic
Council.
The lawmaker lamented that before
the Joint Task Force could swing into action to recover the unremitted amount,
the CBN in August 2019 released a report that its borrowings to banks will hit
N23 trillion by the end of this year.
“The Senate must consider whether
the target N20 trillion fund is being recycled into private banks (with
impunity) 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,”
Akinyelure said.
In his concluding remarks, the
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said, “I engaged the Ministry of Finance
and CBN for an interaction, and I discovered that what we have been expecting
to be available as stamp duty is not so.
“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.
“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.”
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