Reps summons AGF, CBN, commercial banks, others over Stamp Duty

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has summoned the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and officials of some commercial banks to appear before it to explain their roles in the collection of Stamp Duties.

This follows an order by the chairman of the committee after the appearance of the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler and Post Master General of the Nigerian Postal Service, Bisi Adebuyi before the committee on Thursday.

The duo appeared before the committee to explain the state of stamp duties collection from 2004 to 2015, among others.

Speaking during his appearance, the Postmaster General informed the committee that NIPOST collected the sum of N43.364 billion as stamp duties from February 2016 to November 9th, 2019.

“I am hereby announcing to the world that what we have collected so far from stamp duties is N43.364 billion from February 2016 to November 8 2019;  domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),” he said.

Reacting, the chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, questioned the absence of records on stamp duties collection between 2004 to 2015.

Making a clarification, the NIPOST Director in charge of Finance and Investment, Shaba Usman, said that, the agency started stamp collection in 2016 through the commercial banks.

While responding on some of the salient issues regarding the role of FIRS, Fowler explained that the Office of the Accountant General, the CBN and the commercial banks would be in the best position to explain.

The Committee therefore directed that the AGF, CBN as well as the commercial banks involved be invited to appear before it  next Thursday.