Citibank Fails To Disclose 5yrs’ Fees On FG’s N643bn Revenue On Remita
Citibank Nigeria Limited may run into troubled waters with federal lawmakers over its failure to disclose the total sum of the fees it earned over the N643,427,225,110.96 revenue it collected on behalf of the federal government through Remita over five years.
The years according to the records at the investigative hearing at the House of Representatives are 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
The Remita is the platform through which the federal government collects its revenue into the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA). Still, records at the ongoing investigative hearing on revenue through Remita show that Citibank collected the sum of N643,427,225,110.96 between 2016 and 2022 for the federal government through the Remita platform but could only account for fees earned in 2016 and 2018.
From the records submitted to the House Committee on Public Accounts, Citibank earned N2,435,932.34 fees on a total of N34,656,636,415.24 transactions in 2016. Also, it earned N9,134,312.05 fees for a total of N61,023,589,404.01 transactions carried out in 2018.
Citibank appeared with three other banks including Access Bank, Fidelity Bank and Ecobank during which they were queried over a total of N11.632 trillion in revenue collected on behalf of the Federal Government through the REMITA platform between the 2015 and 2022 fiscal years.
During the investigation which also covered non-compliance with the standard operating procedure and other allied service agreements, the committee demanded all the agreements signed between all the participating domestic banks and Systemspec/REMITA during the period under review.
A breakdown of the collection shows Access Bank collected a total sum of N2.661 trillion for 3,502,486 transactions between 2015 and 2022 while it earned N858,734,455.99 as a fee for the service rendered.
Records showed that Ecobank collected the sum of N1,480,576,309.08 from 1,557,487 transactions carried out between 2015 and 2022 while it earned the sum of N253,848,598.05 fees in the period under review.
Available records on the transactions carried out by Fidelity Bank showed that the sum of N6.847 trillion was collected on behalf of the Federal Government in 11,696,547 transactions carried out between 2015 to 2022. From the transactions carried out, the bank generated N789,294,408.86 fees for the period under consideration.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Bamidele Salam at the investigative hearing, alleged revenue leakages through the REMITA platform and requested from the banks’ representatives, all the agreements signed by the banks with Systemspec/REMITA to collect the revenue on behalf of the Federal Government for the period under review.
The lawmakers also demanded a breakdown of value-added tax (VAT) and withholding tax (WHT) collected within the period and evidence of payment into relevant government coffers.
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