ABUJA, August 25, (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives has come hard on banks in Nigeria, accusing some of them of defrauding unsuspecting customers through unprofessional and sharp practices.
Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibril, who disclosed this in Abuja on Sunday said the discovery was made after the committee undertook an examination of their books and its interaction with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
According to him, “preliminary findings show a poor quality of returns by the banks, discrepancies in data submitted, outright refusal to present documentary evidence, blanket violations of existing laws, self exemption from existing rules, false declaration, manipulation and distortion of information among others.”
He said “These despicable acts of gross misconduct clearly depict the unscrupulous and roguish character of some banks and their chief executive officers. For the Committee on Finance, this is unacceptable!
“For instance, balances reported in the published audited accounts of some banks show huge variance with the figures submitted to the Committee.
“The data submitted to the CBN in their monthly returns on the same issues were found to be different from what was tendered before the committee.”
The chairman noted that “even more embarrassing are the inconsistencies and huge variances in some data provided in different pages of documents submitted, thus leaving the committee to conclude that many banks blatantly engage in the creative accounting technique of inflating their operating costs to reduce their exposure to taxes.
“Pursuant to the statutory mandate of the House committee on finance and its oversight functions over the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and tax matters, the committee on Finance has been investigating tax remittances, tax assessments and payments by banks”.
Jibril explained that since the inception of the 7th assembly, the committee on finance has been inundated with reports on cases of tax evasion and sharp practices in tax remittances by banks. Consequently the committee decided to bring the banks under close legislative scrutiny.
He said as “a fallout of two separate meetings with chief executives of the banks, three different templates were distributed to all deposit money banks in the country to complete and submit to the committee. ”
According to him, “In the last few months, the committee has analysed volumes of documents submitted by the banks and is pleased to announce that it has enjoyed tremendous capacity support from the DFID, NABRO and reputable professionals in the industry in conducting its revenue generation and remittances investigations.”
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