Reps orders GTB to refund 7-year unremitted VAT to Federal Government
Maureen Aguta
The House of Representatives has asked Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB, to calculate and refund to the Federal Government recovery accounts, the Value Added Tax (VAT) on the commission from Remita, which the bank failed to remit for a seven-year period.
The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, which made the order, said the non-remittance by the GTB was from 2015 to 2022.
The Nigerian Government uses Remita, a financial solution gateway technology, for the collection of revenue for ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Bamidele Salam gave the directive on Thursday at the ongoing investigation into alleged revenue leakages through REMITA platform and non-compliance substantively with standard operating procedure and other allied service agreements.
The panel raised two issues on evidence of remittance of VAT components of Remita collections and collection of fees in the first regime of the Remita transaction.
Responding, the executive director of GTBank, Ahmed Liman, said the bank did not remit the VAT for the period of eight years.
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.”
Liman also said the collection of fees in the first regime of the Remita transaction; the bank charged 0.75 per cent on all the payers who used the platform.
The executive director added that the bank received N254.4 million from the Accountant General through Remita in 2018.
The committee resolved that the bank should calculate and remit the VAT on the commission fees received from the platform from 2015 to 2022 to the federal government recovery accounts domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Other banks that appeared before the committee on the same issues were Keystone, Sterling Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, and Wema, among others.
The committee referred the aforementioned banks to the reconciliation sub-committee in order to address the discrepancies that were noted and get a new date to re-appear before the panel.