January 24, (THEWILL) – The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said the total revenue collected as stamp duty in six years between 2016 and 2022 is N370,686 billion.
His clarification came amid reports of alleged non-remittance/misappropriation of stamp duty collections.
A member of the House of Representatives, representing Kazaure, Roni, Gwiwa, Yankwashi of Jigawa State, Muhammed Kazaure, alleged that N89.09 trillion purportedly realised from deductions by banks as stamp duty charges had been diverted.
While the Presidency dismissed the allegations and described the claim as a figment of the imagination of Kazaure, the CBN, also in an earlier statement by its Director, Corporate Communication, Osita Nwanisobi, said such allegations were shocking, since the assets of the entire banking industry were less than the amount being taunted.
The apex bank had also engaged four audit firms to conduct forensic review of the collections from 2015 till date
Briefing newsmen on Tuesday, at the end of a two-day meeting of the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Abuja, Emefiele said N370 billion and not N89 trillion has been collected between 2016 and 2022.
“Total assets of all banks is N71 trillion; total deposit in banks is N44 trillion. From 2016 till date, stamp duty collection has amounted to N370,686 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.
“The highest collection of the stamp is N71 billion, collected by First Bank”, said Emefiele, adding that the apex bank had appointed four world-class audit firms to go into the books of banks to verify if there was any unremitted stamp duty.
“If there is any uncollected stamp duty, the banks will pay to the last kobo”, he assured.
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