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Niger State Government and some commercial banks in the state are currently at loggerheads over the ongoing strike by the latter on account of alleged N456.7 million unpaid tax liability.
Last week,the Niger State Internal Revenue Service sealed branches of eight commercial banks, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), and two other organisations over alleged N456.7 million unpaid tax liability.
Guaranty Trust (GT) Bank, First Bank, United Bank for Africa, Heritage, Polaris, Unity, Union, and Stanbic IBTC, were also affected by the action.
The embarked since last week embarked on an indefinite strike due to the disagreement with the state’s revenue board over tax evasion.
Besides, all ATM centres were shut by banks, leaving customers to make use of POS services as an alternative option.
One of the affected bank branch managers was said to have disclosed that the apex bank gave nod to the current action at a bankers’ committee meeting with the CBN branch controller in Minna, Niger state capital, recently
“Dear colleagues, kindly be informed that we are shutting down services with immediate effect. This is mandated by CBN Branch Controller in the meeting with Banks yesterday,” the statement reads.
“It is in protest against Niger State Government’s outrageous tax levies against banks in the state. Kindly attend to the customers in front of you and clear out.”
The CBN Minna branch controller said: “If we don’t get any response from Niger State Board of Internal Revenue, the action should continue on Monday 13th September 2021.”
The bankers’ committee was said to have threatened in a follow-up email that unless the Niger state Board of Internal Revenue reopened the closed banks and retracted “bogus tax claims levied against the DMBs,” the strike will continue.
But Hussaini Abdulrahman, Niger state Internal Revenue Service special adviser on media and communications, claimed that the strike by commercial banks is an attempt to blackmail the revenue agency.
He added:“This strike was instigated by the Access Bank. A letter was written to Access Bank to come forward and clear their outstanding debt.Instead of responding in the right way, they went and manipulated other banks using Bankers Committee and started the strike.
“About six banks earlier sealed have made substantial payments. Rashida Restaurant paid N1.5m out of the N3m it owed the state.AEDC had also made some payments and they have been unsealed.”
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