The House of Representatives Committee on Customs resumed its investigative hearing on the alleged non-remittance of N10.6 billion Customs and Excise duties collected by five commercial banks.
The five Banks includes Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), United Bank of Africa (UBA) Eco Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Providus Bank.
This was disclosed by the Chairman of the committee, Rep. Leke Abejide, on Wednesday in Abuja at the committee’s hearing, adding that the House Committee is committed to recovering unremitted revenue by related institutions before the end of the year.
He added that the Committee is in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover the assets owed to the FG and urged the banks to provide all necessary documents to the auditors for reconciliation and onward payment.
What the committee said:
It said, “We have been on this assignment for about a year now, it is because of COVID-19 that we could not do much last year, but we are determined to finish it before the end of 2021.
“The assignment is so important because the major issues confronting Nigeria today is inadequate revenue and this is as a result of leakages everywhere.
“We are going to make sure that any money belonging to the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) that have not been given to them or that is being delayed or used for business is recovered. We are determined.
“We have not done much, we have only checked five banks and we have discovered N10.6 billion.’’
The bank officials at the hearing said that the amount disputed could be resolved in meetings between its auditors and the Committee to compare documents. However, reports say representatives of the United Bank of Africa were walked out of the hearing due to the unavailability of top officials from the bank
In case you missed it
Nairametrics also reported earlier that the House of Representatives Committee on Customs had given the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) two weeks to reduce its 18 cargo clearing stages to four in order to decongest the nation’s ports.
Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Leke Abejide said that the process should be limited to the offices of the Comptroller Area Commander (CAC), Deputy Comptroller Revenue (DCR), Officer in Charge of Bond and then Gate.
