Senate Threatens To Unleash EFCC Over Failure Of Banks To Remit FG’s N536bn

Out of the over N30 trillion it is investigating, the Nigerian Senate has discovered that over N536 billion collected by various banks on behalf of Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, was not remitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
It therefore handed a seven-day ultimatum for the central bank to recover the funds or leave the upper legislative chambers with no option than to involve the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in the recovery of the said amount.
This was made known on Tuesday during an investigative hearing which the Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff had with the CBN, Ministry of Finance, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, commercial banks and other stakeholders.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Hope Uzodinma, who announced the ultimatum at the hearing, stated that “there are various infractions regarding import and export duties and we have carried out detailed investigation into the matter.
“Today, we will address the non-remittance of revenue collected on behalf of Customs.
“We must recover what we are able to and moving forward, we must stop this infraction that is affecting our economy negatively,” he said.
Noting that the development has adversely affected the Naira, Uzodinma pointed out that it was embarrassing for the Naira to exchange for almost N400 to a dollar.
He gave the banks two weeks to clarify infractions relating to utilised and un-utilised Form Ms and Simple Goods Declaration, SGD, and others, including abandoned assessment of Customs Duties and foreign exchange allocation manipulation.
On infractions pertaining to goods destined for free trade zones, the committee chairman noted that imported goods which have flooded the market are now competing with local products.
Speaking on ways to stop multiple registration of Tax Identification Number, TIN, by importers, he called for synergy among the FIRS, CAC and Customs.