The House of Representatives has asked Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) to transfer VAT on fees received from Remita between 2015 and 2022 to the federal government recovery account.
The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Bamidele Salam (PDP-Osun), gave the directive on Thursday during the ongoing investigation into the alleged loss of revenue through the Remita platform.
The committee will also look into violations of standard operating procedures and other related matters.
Remita is a financial technology used by the Federal Government to transfer revenues from government entities to the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Bamidele’s directive came on the basis of a unanimous resolution after the committee reviewed documents and heard input from the bank management.
GTB executive director Ahmed Liman said the bank has not paid VAT for eight years. According to him, the bank was under the impression that Remita had already deducted Value Added Tax (VAT) before distributing commissions to the bank.
“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,” he said.
The executive director said the bank charged 0.75 percent to all payers who use the Remita platform. He added that the bank received N254,489,013 from the general accountant through Remita in 2018.
Other banks whose records will be examined by the committee include Keystone, Zenith Bank, Sterling Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, and Wema.
