By Joshua Afolabi, Abuja
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has resumed hearing over the investigation of Revenue Leakages through the Remita platform and Non-compliance substantively with the standard operating procedure and other allied service level agreements 2023.
The Committee Chaired by Representative Bamidele Salam questioned First Bank, Union Bank, Titan Trust Bank, Access Bank, Citi Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, and Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) on 16th and 19th February 2024 over alleged leakages in Revenue.
In his remark, The Managing Director of First Bank represented by the unit head, Tatah Jones, and one other staff said that the total collection revenue between 2015 to 2022 is N5,319, 333, 967 668.12 trillion from the total transactions of 6,815,273 million and Total charges of earned by the bank is N1,284,374,556.54 billion.
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years he said, “In 2015 we collected N252.6 billion; in 2016, N482.5 billion; in 2017, N666.5 billion; in 2018, N882.4 billion; in 2019, N847.8 billion; in 2020, N719.6 billion, in 2021, N839.1 billion; and, in 2022, N628.4 billion.”
According to him, “2015-2018 we have 40% which was given to the bank and 1% cap at 5000 from November 2018 – December 2019 at this time it was N150 plus 5% VAT and the share of the bank from that figure is 40% also from January 2020 to December 2020 the fee was 150 plus 7.5 VAT the percentage of the fees that is given to the bank was also 40% but January 2021 till date the fee is 150 plus 7.5 VAT what was due to the bank or shared as the fee of collection was 33% of the 150 plus 7.5 VAT that is the breakdown of it.”
However, The Union Bank Executive Director, Sola Aliu said that Between 2015 to 2022 the bank did a total of N1.3 trillion in terms of transactions value and the total income from Remita for that period was N150.4 million with a total transaction count of 1,458,414 and all transactions were received and remitted as at when due.
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years he said, “In 2015 we collected N30.3 billion; in 2016, N142.1 billion; in 2017, N175.5 billion; in 2018, N229.7 billion; in 2019, N113.7 billion; in 2020, N158.5 billion, in 2021, N213.4 billion; and, in 2022, N283.2 billion.”
“The way the remita transaction works is E-invoicing. The invoice for the customer is online it is automated such that the amount you are remitting as to be equal to the amount on the invoice, it is actually a strict process it automated end-to-end. We remit the full value of the transaction value of the invoice to remita and the MDAs are credited and the fees as details in the fees structure are given to respective stakeholders and the bank takes theirs for that period we have received N150,286,394.74” he explained
“There is a difference of N6.6 million that you are admitting to and what we are looking at is investigating revenue leakages through the remita platform, would you suggest that this is one of the leakages that we are looking for” The Chairman questioned.
In reaction to the Chairman’s question, “I would not say at this point that it is a leakage. In terms of collection, it is paid end-to-end but in terms of fees, fees are given after some time, you don’t collect fees per transaction, you collect fees in bulk over a period of time. When we did our reconciliation for the period this is what we got. Feedback from Remita is N150 million and we have asked them to furnish us with the details of when this particular fee was paid to the bank and they have committed to get back to us before the end of this month. In that instance, I won’t call it a leakage for now.”
In his presentation, the Executive Director of FIDELITY Bank, Mr. Abolore Solebi, who appeared with his Staff said, “Fidelity was enacted to Remita platform in 2015 on behalf of the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) for the Treasury Single Account (TSA). For the past seven years (7) we have collected the sum of N1.8 trillion and our fees are N789,294,408.86.”
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years he said, “In 2015 we collected N74.4 billion; in 2016, N66.7 billion; in 2017, N117.1 billion; in 2018, N185.7 billion; in 2019, N223.9 billion; in 2020, N255.8 billion, in 2021, N461.9 billion; and, in 2022, N495.1 billion.”
The Committee questioned Fidelity over the agreement it entered with SystemSpecs which was in 2017 different from the bank claimed that the bank was enacted into TSA in 2015
Responding to the question, Mr. Abolore said that Fidelity did not have any agreement with SystemSpecs and that the bank only followed the direction of CBN that mandated them to switch TSA and collect revenue on behalf of the Federal government.
He also claimed that the bank didn’t earn any commission for the Services they rendered for SystemSpecs/Remita in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Also, the ECObank General Manager represented by the Divisional head, of FCT and North, Mr. Tunde Dawodu, who also appeared with his staff before the Committee said that the banks collected the sum of N1.4 trillion from 2015 to 2022.
Dawodu said Ecobank entered into the Remita platform in 2015 and by extension the Treasury Single Account that was stipulated to collect revenue on behalf of the federal government.
According to him, “The revenue we generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years is “In 2015 we collected N45.5 billion; in 2016, N81.6 billion; in 2017, N188.6 billion; in 2018, N309.5 billion; in 2019, N172 billion; in 2020, N129.3 billion, in 2021, N291.4 billion; and, in 2022, N262.4 billion which total N1.4 trillion and our fees are N253.8 billion”
Also in an appearance, the Citibank Executive Director of Operations, Mrs. Ngozi Omoke-Enyi, who also appeared with her staff before the Committee said that the banks collected the sum of N385,840,269, 884.57 billion from 2016 to 2022.
Omoke-Enyi said Citibank started the collection of revenue on behalf of the federal government through the Remita platform in 2016.
According to him, “The revenue we generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years is “In 2016 we collected N34.7 billion; in 2017, N58 billion; in 2018, N62 billion; in 2019, N103.8 billion; in 2020, N30 billion, in 2021, N69.9 billion; and, in 2022, N23.8 billion which total N1.4 trillion and our fees are N42 billion”
Also, the Access Bank Director of Payment and Compliance, Opeyemi Ajao, who also appeared with his staff before the Committee said that the banks collected the sum of N2.6 trillion from 2015 to 2022.
Ajao said Access Bank started the collection of revenue through the SystemSpecs/Remita platform in 2015.
According to him, “The revenue we generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years is “In 2015 we collected N198.4 billion; in 2016, N396.4 billion; in 2017, N415.8 billion; in 2018, N332.4 billion; in 2019, N219 billion; in 2020, N223 billion, in 2021, N459.7 billion; and, in 2022, N415.9 billion which total N2.6 trillion and our fees are N858.7 billion”
Director of Finance and Account of the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), Mufutau Hello said that N90,193,062,584.59 revenue was generated between 2017 to 2022.
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated, he said, “In 2017 we collected N20.7 billion, in 2018, N11.4 billion, in 2019, N8.9 billion, in 2020, N13.2 billion, in 2021, N11.8 billion and in 2022, 17 billion.”
“In our record, we have N90 billion collected from 2017 to 2022 but I just want the house to note that if we are talking about the collection of JAMB not all of them belong to JAMB for example this year registration of candidates is ongoing now, for people that are doing MOCK they pay N7700 out of this amount only N3500 belongs to JAMB all others belong to JAMB third parties. The federal government of Nigeria graciously reduced the registration fee from N5000 to N3500 in the 2019 registration year and since then we have maintained the same figure.
“We have partners, CBT that works with us for each candidate that is registering out of N7700, N700 belongs to the CBT centre for registration. To do the exam we pay N1500 and we make use of diesel for power” he explained
According to him, “The number of candidates registered under Jamb is in 2015, 1,644,072, in 2016, 1,764,895, in 2017, 1,882,559, in 2018, 1,793,018, in 2019, 1,989,682, in 2020, 2,110,623, in 2021, 1,428,209 and in 2022, 1,859,532”
The Chairman warned the United Bank for Africa (UBA) against ignoring the parliament invitation.
According to him, “We have a special case or issue with UBA because in every of our hearings whenever we write UBA for submission of documents, is either they ignore such letter or they submit on the day of appearance, and I wouldn’t whether.
“We are warning you to desist from treating letters, invitations requests for documents from parliament with disdain, please take this as a gentle warning because there are consequences provided by laws especially the Nigeria Constitution for this kind of conduct.
“If you do not know you can consult with your legal department to let you know the implications of refusing to respond to invitation or request of documents by parliament, just take this as a gentle warning and we are going to ask you to make your submissions not later that close of work on Monday 19th February 2024 and appear on Wednesday 21st 2024 to speak to the document.”
Ruling on the matter, the Chairman ordered all banks that appeared to present documents on remitted Value Added Tax (VAT) amount and how it was paid to the federal government account, the original agreement with SystemSpecs, and any other document that will help the investigation.
