House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has asked Guaranty Trust Bank Plc to remit value-added tax (VAT) received through Remita platform between 2015 and 2022 to federal government recovery account.
Gatekeepers News reports that chairman of the Committee, Bamidele Salam issued the directive on Thursday during the ongoing investigation into alleged revenue leakages through the Remita platform.
Public Accounts Committee is also investigating noncompliance with the standard operating procedure and other related matters.
The directive followed a unanimous resolution of the committee after scrutinising the records and hearing from to management of the bank.
Replying to the directive, executive director of GTB, Ahmed Liman said the bank did not remit VAT for eight years, adding that Remita had deducted the VAT before sharing commissions with the bank.
He said, “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.”
The executive director also said GTB charged 0.75 percent on all the players who used the Remita platform.
He noted that the bank received N254,489,013 from the accountant general through Remita in 2018.
The committee is also scrutinising the records of other banks including Keystone, Zenith Bank, Sterling Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, and Wema.
The green chamber had on 22, November 2023, investigated alleged revenue leakages through the Remita platform.
The committee queried Ecobank, Citi Bank, Access, and Fidelity over N11.632 trillion revenue collected on behalf of federal government through Remita platform between 2015 and 2022 fiscal years.