By Mercy Aikoye
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) to calculate and remit Value Added Tax (VAT) on commission received from Remita from 2015 to 2022.
The committee, chaired by Hon. Bamidele Salam, gave the directive during an investigation into alleged revenue leakages through the REMITA platform.
Remita is a financial solution gateway technology used by the federal government for revenue collection.
The committee raised concerns about GTB’s remittance of VAT components of Remita collections and collection of fees in the first Regime of the Remita transaction.
GTB’s Executive Director, Mr Ahmed Liman, admitted that the bank didn’t remit VAT for the period of 8 years, believing Remita was responsible for sharing commission fees.
The committee ordered GTB to remit the VAT to the federal government recovery accounts domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Other banks, including Keystone, Zenith Bank, Sterling Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, and Wema, appeared before the committee on similar issues.
These banks were referred to the reconciliation sub-committee to address discrepancies and will reappear before the committee at a later date.
