The House of Representatives’ Joint Committee on Finance, Banking and Currency on Monday held its inaugural hearing on alleged revenue leakages from the Federation Account estimated at about $30bn yearly relating to transfer of funds for payment of international contracts and interbank transfers, among others.
The committee, co-chaired by Honourables James Faleke and Victor Nwokolo, during the inaugural investigative hearing subjected officials of Citibank and Fidelity Bank to rigorous questioning over the alleged fiscal infractions.
Faleke, in his opening address, recalled that the Green Chamber lawmakers had during their sitting on March 5, 2020, passed a resolution to conduct an investigative hearing on the revenue leakages in excess of $30 billion.
He pointed out that the probe had become expedient in view of the lingering fiscal management crisis in the country, despite its huge natural resources endowments.
The lawmaker harped on the need to reduce to the barest level all forms of fiscal abuses by economic saboteurs to undermine national economic development efforts of the governments and the people.
Faleke listed the infractions as including the lifting of crude oil and gas by oil exploration companies, concealment and non-disclosure of the volume of lifted crude oil, fictitious disappearance of Naira proceeds of foreign inflows and multiple foreign exchange (forex) allocations to holders of foreign inflow Certificates of Capital Importation, amongst others.
The committee subjected the representative of Citibank, Ngozi Omoke, to questioning over alleged non-remittance of funds due to the Federation Account by the bank while also flawing Fidelity Bank official’s, Mallam Hassan’s, presentations during the hearing.
The committee chairman explained that the committee discovered that Citibank had Form A transfer by customers through their bank accounts that were not filed with the CBN and committee, without evidence of withholding tax (WHT) totalling $3,107,398,073.
Also, the committee also disagreed with the bank’s stance on advertisement excluding it as a taxable item, saying it is taxable.
The committee directed the bank to make available all the receipts of various transactions and also asked its clerk to write to the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) to appear before it to confirm the remittances.
Refuting the allegations against Citibank, Omoge maintained that the bank conducted its activities within the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provision Act, stressing that the lender has not violated any of its provisions.
