The House of Representatives Committee on Customs says six commercial banks in the country are currently withholding N10bn Customs duties
The lawmakers have vowed to stop the commercial banks from collecting customs duties for the federal government for failing to remit accurate revenues.
The affected financial institutions are Guaranty Trust Bank, Wema Bank, Providence Bank, UBA, Eco Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.
According to the committee’s interim report, Eco Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Providence Bank, and UBA have not remitted N4.4 billion, N2.4 billion, N66.8 million and N3 billion, respectively.
The committee gave the banks two weeks to reconcile their accounts and provide records of all remittances.
Speaking at the hearing for non-remittance of the duties, Leke Abejide, chairman of the committee, said the panel would mandate the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to deduct all outstanding remittances due to the government from the affected banks.
He explained that the essence of the investigative hearing is to boost the revenue generation of the government.
He added:“Failure to reconcile with our consultants and pay up the outstanding before two weeks, we will use the power of the gavel.Reconcile with our consultants, we are giving you 14 days to do so, anything after the said date, we will bring out the big stick against you by asking CBN to deduct from source, and we will also delete you from customs duties collection”.
Abejide added that the committee would investigate 15 more banks to ensure that all duties due to the federal government are recovered.
