The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele has denied embezzlement of the sum of N89.09 stamp duty funds.
A member of the House of Representatives, Gudaji Kazaure, had recently alleged that N89.09 trillion purportedly realised from deductions by banks as stamp duty charges had been diverted by Emefiele.
The lawmaker also alleged that the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele kept another $171 billion in the bank’s private investors’ account as proceeds of stamp duty.
The presidency had however dismissed the allegations of misappropriation of Stamp Duty funds levelled against some government agencies.
But, reacting to the allegations during the first Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, in Abuja on Tuesday, Emefiele denied allegation of diverting the said fund.
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Emefiele also denied that the stamp duty fund from 2016 to date is N89.09 trillion, saying that the total amount is N370, 686, 315, 505. 28.
The CBN governor explained that “The total asset of banking industry presently is about N71 trillion or N71.5 trillion. The total deposit of banking system as at today is N44.498 trillion. So, how then, the stamp duty, which is N89 trillion is twice deposit of banks, how possible? i totally don’t understand. I don’t understand.
“When we saw the story everywhere, we went through our record, we told banking supervision and banking payment system to go to CBN and check the total amount that has been collected as stamp duty from 2016 to date. We told the banking supervision that let the banks give us the record of what they have collected on stamp duty from 2016 to date. We also told the banks to sign that this is the amount they have collected on stamp duty from the period under review.
“The report that we have in CBN is this, the total stamp duty collected to date is N370, 686, 315, 505. 28.
“Out of this, FIRS or Ministry of Finance has disbursed to FAC N226, 451, 720, 158.88.
“The balance in the account of CBN is now N144, 234, 595, 346.40
The highest collection was first bank which collected N71.6 billion in seven years. I still don’t know where the N89 trillion is. We have to make everything open to public because it is a public account,” Emefiele said.
More details later…
