The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) stated yesterday that it recovered a total of N57.7 billion from banks as unremitted revenues collected on behalf of the Federal Government.
Recent investigations on the banks on revenue collected for the government from July 2012 to December 2015, indicated that the lenders failed to remit N74.1 billion to government coffers.
A statement issued by the Commission’s Head of Public Relations, Ibrahim Mohammed, quoted the acting chairman, Umar Gana, as disclosing this Tuesday in Abuja.
The acting chairman hinted that the commission had also issued demand notices to the banks for the immediate remittance of the outstanding N16.4 billion.
Gana explained that while N48.7 billion of the recovered money had been paid into the Federation Account, N9.07 billion relating to Withholding Tax (WHT) on dividend only had been released to the benefitting states’ Boards of Internal Revenue.
The commission had in 2016 selected 111 auditors and auditing firms out of more than 150 that applied to probe the banks for non-remittance of taxes and duties collected on behalf of the government.
The probe of the banks was sequel to a similar exercise where the banks had been investigated for revenues collected between January 2008 and June 2012. The exercise proved that the banks failed to remit N12 billion collected in taxes and duties on behalf of the revenue collecting agencies.
Following the success of the first exercise, the National Economic Council (FEC), at its meeting on April 21, 2016, approved that the commission should appoint consultants to ensure wide coverage in the verification of the activities of the banks in respect of the revenues collected with a view to determining the remittances.
Consequently, the RMAFC advertised for the consultancy job in the July 24, 2016 edition of the Federal Tenders Journal and more than 150 applied from which 111 were selected.
Gana disclosed that in the course of the exercise, the commission had to seek the intervention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) following the uncooperative attitude earlier exhibited by some revenue generating agencies and the collecting banks.
He explained that the commission resolved to follow up on the outstanding balance of N16.4 billion in liabilities established, whose demand notices were issued to banks but had yet to be defrayed.
