Reps move to investigate four-year duty remittances to CBN

The House of Representatives has resolved to probe Customs duty remitted by commercial banks to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from January 2014 till date. The move is to ascertain their veracity or otherwise.

The resolution followed a motion moved in that respect by Jerry Alagbaoso and 11 others.The chief sponsor alleged that banks now delayed remittances despite the implementation of an e-payment system.

He said: “The House recalls that nearly all the service providers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) handed over their Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) facilities to the service on December 1, 2013 and since then, there has been news that commercial banks had remitted billions of naira in duty to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which has generated a lot of reactions in the public domain.”

Consequently, Speaker Yakubu Dogara mandated the Committee on Customs and Excise to carry out the assignment and report back to the chamber within eight weeks for further legislative action.Also the chamber’s Ad hoc Committee investigating over N6 trillion revenue leakages in the country’s oil sector yesterday grilled Agip Nigeria Oil Limited over alleged unremitted royalties and penalties arising from gas flaring in the Niger Delta region.

The panel also gave the company till next Monday to tender relevant documents to reconcile its transactions with the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) ahead of an investigative hearing on November 15.

The directive followed the claim by the oil firm that it had offset all outstanding liabilities. It gave the submission through the General Manager, Finance, Carlo Santopadre.The company’s Tax Manager, Oluwole Agbede, corroborated him, saying: “We usually have annual reconciliation exercise with the DPR where grey areas are ironed out.”

The committee chairman, Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe (PDP, Cross River) informed the officials that “what we look at is the volume of products taken by you as there is computation done in this regard.  And the people who do this is the DPR.”Also yesterday, the chamber ordered its committees on Human Rights, Defence and Army to probe the alleged shooting of of a 17-year-old female secondary school female student by a soldier in Jos, Plateau State.

The panels were also asked to review the operations of the Special Task Force (STF) in the city.The resolution followed the adoption of a motion by Istifanus Dung Gyang (PDP, Plateau) and Edward Pwajok (APC, Plateau).