The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee, PAC, has queried the payment of N15 billion to Remita, a payment platform from the Office of the Accountant General for the Federation, OAGF.<\/p>\n
The committee accused the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and Commercial Banks of complicity in the sharing of the N150 billion remittance.<\/p>\n
Bamidele Salam, Chairman PAC, made the allegation at the resumed investigative hearing on revenue leakages in Abuja on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Remita is a payment solution that helps individuals and business make and receive payment, pay bills and manage their finances.<\/p>\n
Salam said that the payment of N15 billion to Remita from the OAGF from 2016 to 2018 was questionable, adding that the OAGF paid the mobey without agreement or contract.<\/p>\n
He described the payment as illegal. \u201cThe money is an illegal payment; there was no budget provision, so where did they source the money from?\u201d the chairman queried.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CBN also shared in the money. The money is an illegal payment; there was no budget provision, so where did they source the money from?\u201d<\/p>\n
According to him, for instance, if someone pays N150 as a remitter, you will now pay 7.5 percent Value-Added Tax (VAT) in addition to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrdinarily, that whole sum of VAT ought to go to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), but what they are doing in this transaction is that they will now add that VAT to the N150.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will add it up, gather the money together, and take it to the CBN,\u201d\u201d he alleged.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cSystem Spec and Remitta, both collecting revenue for the federal government, will share 50 percent, while the banks and the CBN will also have their share.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that by the time the Committee finished its reconciliation, \u201cI am very sure that hundreds of billions of naira will be the VAT component that was not remitted to FIRS.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to him, each bank ought to take the money and directly remit it to FIRS.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow Remita is saying that those collecting should calculate the money that has been shared into shreds.How do we track this kind of money? \u201che asked.<\/p>\n
The Director of Banking Services of the CBN, Mr Ahmed Abdullahi, said they deemed it fit to source for an alternative way of remitting revenue and Remita and System Spec were selected because they had been rendering similar services to banks.<\/p>\n
According to him, Remita was engaged in 2011 and operations commenced in 2012 with system module names.<\/p>\n
The CBN only finalised the transaction<\/p>\n
He said that the fees charged under the TSA were in line with the structure of banking. The volume of revenue collection that passed through Remita was N86 million.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee, PAC, has queried the payment of N15 billion to Remita, a payment platform from the Office of the Accountant General for the Federation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n