Bank Chiefs Appear before Reps over N83Bn Tax Remittance

The bank chief executive officer that were threatened with arrests on Monday for failing to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Finance investigative hearing on tax remittance turned up yesterday and apologised.

They blamed communication gap as being responsible and promised that such would not occur again they are summoned.

The Committee however, lashed out at one of the bridged banks for sending an officer below the rank of an executive director, who was subsequently walked out of the meeting.

It will be recalled that the House of Representatives had threatened to arrest 10 bank chief executive officers over their failure to attend its investigative hearing on tax remittance on Monday.

The bank chiefs are: First City Monument Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Keystone Bank Limited, Heritage Bank Limited and Zenith Bank Plc. Others are: Ecobank Plc, City Bank; Stanbic IBTC Plc and Enterprise Bank Limited.

The House said that the bank chief have till yesterday (Wednesday) to appear before it or risk being arrested.

The House sought clarifications after Mr. Kabir Mashi, acting chairman of the agency who appeared before the committee on Monday, claimed that N83 billion was the total sum expected from the banks, but only N77 billion was remitted.

Mashi, who also said that FIRS audited 23 banks within the period, told the committee that the N83 billion targets was not met because some banks delayed in remitting funds they collected on behalf of the agency.


But at the resumed hearing yesterday, Godwin Emefiele, managing director, Zenith Bank Plc apologised for non-appearance of the bank chiefs, saying it was not deliberate, citing communication gap as being responsible.
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“We will cooperate fully and give our counsel where necessary to achieve the purpose of this exercise, moving our economy forward,” he said.

Other bank chiefs, in their responses towed the same line with the Zenith Bank boss with promises of cooperating with the Committee.

The bank chiefs were given additional information to the template earlier given to them, which they would defend between June 3rd and 7th, 2013.

CEOs of Zenith Bank, Heritage Bank and Keystone Bank and Executive Directors of five others were present at the session.

Abdulmumin Jibrin, chairman of the Committee said: “We take exception to parliamentary invitation being treated with levity. We don’t think there is anything more important to the CEOs than what the Committee is doing on the economy on behalf of Nigerian people”.

Jibrin also allayed the fears of the bank Chiefs over the exercise, noting that the investigation would turn out to be beneficial to the banking sector through proactive legislations. .

“It may even turn out that the banks may be refunded over their remittances by the time we conclude analysing the data at our disposal.

“In the final analysis, the sector would be better for it as our intention is to strengthen the sector,” he added.