We are Probing N89trn Stamp Duty Allegation – Emefiele

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, has described as potentially misleading the viral allegation that a whooping sum of 89 trillion naira has been collected and misappropriated as stamp duty by federal government agencies between 2016 and 2022.

A member of the House of Representatives, Gudaji Kazaure, has since last year been in the forefront of the allegation that the sum of N89 trillion collected as stamp duty has not been accounted for.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, Emefiele however described the allegation as doubtful, adding that between 2016 and 2022, the total sum collected as stamp duty was N378,686 billion.

He also added that the apex bank had appointed some world class audit firms to torchlight the books of the commercial banks.

“CBN will not join people in heating up the system. We wrote to banks to give us in their letter headed papers and sign it how much they have collected from stamp duty from 2016 to date.

“Total assets of all banks are N71 trillion; total deposit in banks is N44.49 trillion. From 2016 till date, stamp duty collection has amounted to N378,686 billion.

“The Federal Inland Revenue Service has disbursed N226.451 billion of the money to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), while the balance of N144, 235 billion is in the CBN.

“The highest collection of the stamp is N71 billion, collected by First Bank,” he said.

“We appointed four leading audit firms (KPMG, PWC, Deloitte and one other) to go into the books of banks to verify if there was any unremitted stamp duty.

“If there is any uncollected stamp duty, the banks will pay to the last kobo,” Emefiele said.