4 Banks Owe FG N10.6bn in Customs Duty — Reps

The House of Representatives has threatened to stop banks from remitting billions of naira collected as customs duty to the federal government, claiming that four out of 18 banks failed to do so.

When the banks appeared before the House Committee on Customs on Wednesday, this was their position. Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Standard Chartered Bank, Ecobank, and Providus Bank were the banks involved.

Most banks have been found culpable of not disclosing the exact amount they owed as outstanding remittances of Customs Duty collections running into billions of naira, according to Chairman of the Committee, Leke Abejide (APC, Kogi).

According to him, four of the 18 banks under investigation are allegedly owed the federal government N10.6 billion in unpaid Customs duty collections.

ECO Bank was also chastised by the committee for claiming N450 million in unremitted funds in documents submitted to the committee earlier.

According to Abejide, the committee discovered that the figure is N3.9 billion after conducting an independent investigation, collecting data, and analyzing the bank’s customs collection transactions.

Haruna Musa, the GTB’s Executive Director, said that some of the figures from the N103 million liability that had been tagged as unremitted had actually been remitted by the bank.

Ecobank Executive Director, Corporate Banking, Adekola Adeleke, however, stated that the bank owes no other funds.

Providus Bank was praised by the committee for being more honest in their disclosure than the other banks.

Nasir Muhammed, the bank’s Group Head, Public Sector, said that of the N213 million collected, N129 million was submitted late, and the remaining balance will be paid promptly.

“I’m using this medium to issue a warning to them. We were able to recover N10.6 billion from 18 banks, or 5 out of 18 banks, which are owed to the government,” Abejide said.

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The chairman of the committee warned that any bank found wanting or holding on to funds collected on behalf of the Nigeria Customs Service would be sanctioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the outstanding amount deducted from their accounts (CBN).

“Well, we’ve given them two weeks to go and come back,” says the narrator. We will have no choice but to write the CBN to deduct the money from source after these two weeks,” Abejide warned.