KEHINDE AKINTOLA
Nigeria’s House of Representatives during the Thursday plenary session unveiled plans to investigate the non-remittance of multi-trillion naira accrued from sale of stamp duties taxes into the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
As contained in the 2019 revenue proposal and encapsulated in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), total sum of N17.641 billion is expected from stamp duty in 2019 fiscal year representing 0.20% of non-oil revenue projection for the year.
The resolution was passed sequel to the adoption of a motion under matters of urgent public importance sponsored by Goni Bukar Lawan (APC-Yobe), who frowned at the non-compliance of the regulatory agencies with the TSA policy.
The lawmaker who alleged that Federal Government has lost trillions of Naira consequent upon unremitted monies accrued from stamp duties, observed that: “stamp duties are statutory taxes levied on legal instruments including cheques, receipts, military commissions, licenses and land transaction documents.
“Few years ago however, banks were mandated to collect stamp duties from account holders. While the deductible amount per bank account seems small, it cumulatively adds up to money in billions and trillions of naira a d must be subjected to the full disclosure and transparency.
“The complicit irregularities by which public institutions including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), Nigeria Postal Services (NIPOST), among others, have overtime failed to remit stamp duty taxes into the consolidated revenue account running into trillions.
“NIPOST entered into an agreement in 2014 to collect stamp duties and armed with the masters service agreement with NIPOST, the School Banking Honours (SBH) approached the Central Bank of Nigeria for authorization to engage Deposit Money Banks (DBMs) and other Stamp Duties collection agents and the CBN gave required approval.”
Lawan however noted that: “all efforts to get details of remittances of funds realized from stamp duty taxes through the Freedom of Information Act were not successful by domestic and foreign civil society organizations.
“These would have been used to pay salaries, provide infrastructure and financing economic development in the country or at least should have generated some interest in the privates where the fund is domiciled in the commercial banks.
“Due to the concern mounting over the non-remittance, it is clearly an obvious disobedience to TSA policy for the stamp duties fund to be hidden in commercial banks instead of been remitted to the TSA account,” he stressed.
While ruling on the motion, the House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee that will investigate the allegation and report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
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