CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced that N378.7 billion has been collected in revenue from stamp duty over the past six years during the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja.
This comes after a member of the House of Representatives, Gudaji Kazaure, alleged that some government agencies misused the N89.09 trillion collected as stamp duty revenues and hindered the efforts of the Presidential Committee on the Reconciliation and Recovery of All Stamp Duties in the country.
The presidency, through the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has dismissed the allegations made by Gudaji Kazaure of government agencies misusing funds collected as stamp duty revenues. The statement called the claims a “figment of the imagination” and on Tuesday, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, also denied the allegations made by the lawmaker.
“CBN will not join in heating the system. We wrote to banks to give us in their letter headed papers and sign it how much they have collected from stamp duty from 2016 to date,” he said.
“Total assets of all banks are N71 trillion; total deposits in banks is N44.49 trillion. From 2016 till date, stamp duty collection has amounted to N378,686 billion.
“The Federal Inland Revenue Service has disbursed N226.451 billion of the money to the Federation Account Allocation Committee, while the balance of N144, 235 billion is in the CBN.”
According to him, the highest revenue collection through stamp duty is N71 billion, collected by First Bank.
Mr Emefiele said CBN has appointed four leading audit firms, including KPMG, PWC, Deloitte and one other, to go into the books of banks to verify if there was any unremitted revenue from stamp duty.
“If there is any uncollected stamp duty, the banks will pay to the last kobo,” he said.
Source: Premium Times