The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) to calculate and remit back to the federal government recovery account, all the Value Added Tax (VAT) commission it received from Remita between 2015 to 2022.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Bamidele Salam, issued the directive today on behalf of the committee during the resumed investigative hearing into alleged revenue leakages through REMITA platform and non-compliance with standard operating procedure and other allied service agreements by the financial outfit.
Accordingly, the committee raised two observations on evidence of remittance of VAT components of Remita collections and collection of fees during the first regime of Remita introduction.
This is as other banks like Keystone, Sterling Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, Wema and Zenith Bank all appeared before the committee today.
Reacting to the directive, Executive Director of GTB, Ahmed Liman, informed the committee that, the duration his bank remitted the VAT was not up to 8 years.
In his statement, “We believe that Remita is saddled with the responsibility of sharing the commission fees between the payment receiving parties.
“In our mind, we think Remita has done the needful before sharing the fees between the parties.”
Meanwhile, responding to the second observation on the collection during the first regime of the Remita introduction, Ahmed added that the bank charges 0.75 per cent on all the payers who used the Remita platform.
The Executive Director revealed that his bank GTB received N254,489,013 from the Accountant General through Remita in 2018.
Subsequently, the committee ordered that Guarranty Trust Bank should calculate and remit the Value Added Tax (VAT) on the commission fees it received from the platform from 2015 to 2022 to the federal government recovery accounts domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with immediate effect.
Other Banks that appeared before the committee on the same issues were referred to the reconciliation sub-committee in order to address observed discrepancies in their record that were noted and be reconcile before their next appearance before the committee.
