The lawmaker lamented that before the Joint Task Force could swing into action to recover the unremitted amount, the CBN in August 2019 released a report that its borrowings to banks will hit N23 trillion by the end of this year.
“The Senate must consider whether the target N20 trillion fund is being recycled into private banks (with impunity) when Federal Government had directed its recovery.
“Section 111 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has empowered all 36 State Attorney-Generals and Commissioners for Justice to shut-down any banking operation nationwide for ‘summary recovery’ of stamp duty revenue accruing to them by a further provision of Sections 163 of the same Constitution, and we should not fail in our collective role as Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to stem the looming crisis for our various constituencies and the nation in general,” Akinyelure said.
In his concluding remarks, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said, “I engaged the Ministry of Finance and CBN for an interaction, and I discovered that what we have been expecting to be available as stamp duty is not so.
“I was under the impression that we had over N20 trillion somewhere. It will interest you to know that we don’t even have N1 trillion.
“What has happened is because those that are supposed to collect the stamp duties were taking advantage of the non-electronic transaction”.
“With the passage of the finance bill, this is an opportunity we have to start getting what ordinarily should go to the government”.
“The banks and many private organizations have taken advantage of the way the stamp duties have been. I want to believe that from January 2020, when the Finance Bill will start being effective, the stamp duty collection will be significantly improved”.
“It is for our Finance Committee to monitor closely what the collection should be. We have also come up with another idea of engaging all the revenue generating agencies on a quarterly basis”.