UBA, Ecobank, Wema Bank In Alleged Multi-billion Naira Customs Duty Collections Default, Quizzed By Reps Panel

The House of Representatives Committee on Customs and Excise has quizzed six banks over their failure to remit Customs duty collected into the federal government’s coffer.

The six banks are UBA, Ecobank, GT Bank, Wema Bank, Providus Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

The committee, chaired by Rep Leke Abejide at its resumed hearing on Wednesday, gave the banks two weeks to reconcile their accounts with the consultant working with it or risk removal from duty collection.

Rep Abejide threatened the committee will direct the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to deduct all outstanding obligations due to the government from the accounts of the respective banks.

The chairman of the committee said its interim report showed that Ecobank had an outstanding commitment of N4.39 billion just as he said the bank was yet to provide the remittance data of defunct Oceanic Bank, which Ecobank acquired in 2011.

The committee also said that Standard Chartered Bank had an outstanding remittance of N2.44 billion while Providus Bank had an outstanding of N66.8 million to be remitted to the government.

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United Bank of Africa (UBA) has an outstanding of N3.01 billion to be remitted to the government, according to the interim report.

The interim report of the committee indicated that GT bank just forwarded its account statement to the consultants, hence, no reconciliation yet.

Daily Trust reports that the committee has been holding investigative hearings into discrepancies in remittance of customs duty collected by the affected commercial banks.

(Daily Trust)