N20trn Stamp Duty: Senate to Probe CBN Over Non-remittance

• N20trn Stamp Duty: Senate to Probe CBN Over Non-remittance

The Senate has directed its Committee on Finance to probe the Central Bank of Nigeria for not remitting over N20 trillion generated from stamp duty into Federation Account.

The N20 trillion was the total amount realised by the apex from banks and financial institutions from 2016 till date.

According to Senator Ayo Akinyelure, who moved the motion on ‘The need to improve Internally Generated Revenue of the Federal Government of Nigeria through non-oil revenue’, in 2016, the central bank had instructed deposit money banks to charge N50 as stamp duty on lodgements into current accounts in accordance with Stamp Duty Act 2004 and the Federal Government Financial Regulations 2009.

The Senator, however, said the apex bank has not been remitting the money into the federation account as stipulated by the Stamp Duty Act.

Akinyelure said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria and NIBBS have technically refused to comply with the Presidential directives for the recovery of over N20tn revenue into the coffers of government.”

He also said, “The CBN and NIBSS deliberately failed to cooperate and comply with the directives of Mr President for the realisation of over N20tn revenue due from stamp duty collected for 2013 to 2016.

Subsequently, over N5tn minimum revenue is due to be collected annually to the federation account, to be shared among states of the federation for infrastructural and economic development.”

He added that since the Stamp Duty Act was implemented, “accountability by banks has not been transparent.”

Speaking on the matter, Senate President, 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 N20tn somewhere. It will interest you to know that we don’t even have N1tn.”