The Nigerian Senate, has mandated its Committee on Finance to investigate the non-remittance of over N20 trillion revenue collected as stamp duties.
According to them, the non-remittance from banks and other financial institutions was through the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 2013 to 2016.
It also noted that the CBN had officially directed the affected banks to collect the stamp duty on behalf of the Federal Government from 2016 to date.
The resolution of the Senate was a sequel to a motion on “The need to improve Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the Federal Government by over N5 trillion annually through non-oil revenue sources available at its disposal” sponsored by Senator Akinyelure Patrick Ayo (Ondo Central).
“I engaged the Ministry of Finance and even the CBN for some kind of interaction. I discovered that what we have been expecting as stamp duty is not so. I was having the impression that we had some N20 trillion somewhere. It will interest everybody to know that we don’t even have N1trillion,” said Senate President Ahmad Lawan.
Lawan also noted that “The people who were mandated to take the stamp duty were taking advantage of non-compliance with electronic transaction and we are not getting anything really.
Private organisations have taken advantage of the flaws in the stamp duty and I want to believe that from January, when the Finance Bill will come to effect, the stamp duty collection will significantly improve. It is for our committees to monitor closely what collections are there,” said Senate president.
