The Senate is investigating alleged failure by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to remit stamp duty of over N20 trillion into the Federation Account.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Senator Uba Sani, All Progressives Congress, APC, Kaduna Central, who disclosed this, however, warned against inflammatory and potentially damaging comments on the issue.
Sani said the committee had received petitions on the allegation against the CBN, however explaining that, in the past six months, the Red Chamber had been investigating the matter.
The senator who, pleaded with members of the public, especially critical stakeholders, not to be in a hurry in coming to a conclusion that the CBN has actually erred, stated that since he and other members of the Committee were inaugurated, the issue of non- remittance of stamp duty by the CBN had been on the front burner and that it had been receiving requisite attention at the Committee level.
He disclosed that the Senate Committee had obtained records of other agencies of the Federal Government investigating or familiar with the matter, saying, “It is much more complicated than what most Nigerians know. However, what I can say for now is that from what we have been able to sieve out from documents available to us as well as the depositions we have taken, it is clear that so many forces are confusing Nigerians on this issue.
“With the evidence contained in the plethora of documents the CBN has supplied to my Committee, it can easily be deduced that the total stamp duty unremitted can not be over N20 trillion as being alleged. For one, from records available to us, the total deposit in the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria as of 2016 was only about N18 trillion; so how then can Stamp Duties alone be N21 trillion as being claimed by some petitioners?”
