The House of Representatives has queried Access Bank, Citibank, Ecobank and Fidelity Bank over N11.632 trillion in revenue collected on behalf of the Federal Government through the REMITA platform between the 2015 and 2022 fiscal years.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts, Rep. Bamidele Salami, issued the query at the resumed investigative hearing on ‘alleged revenue leakages through the REMITA platform in Abuja.
The investigation also covered non-compliance with standard operating procedures and other allied service agreements.
The committee demanded all the agreements signed between all the participating domestic banks and Systemspec/REMITA during the period under review.
Records showed that Access Bank collected N2.661 trillion for 3,502,486 transactions between 2015 and 2022, and Access Bank collected N2,660,974,062,151.62.
Also, an N858,734,455.99 fee was earned for the service rendered.
Citi Bank collected N643,427,225,110.96 between 2016 and 2022.
According to a Citi Bank record submitted to the committee, the sum of N2,435,932.34 fee was earned for N34,656,636,415.24 transactions carried out in 2016.
Also, an N9,134,312.05 fee was earned for the N61,023,589,404.01 transaction carried out in 2018.
The bank, however, failed to disclose the fees earned for the 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, respectively.
Records further showed that Ecobank collected the sum of N1,480,576,309.08 from 1,557,487 transactions carried out between 2015 and 2022.
From the amount, Ecobank earned the sum of N253,848,598.05 fees in the period under review.
Available records on the transactions carried out by Fidelity Bank showed that the sum of N6.847 trillion was collected on behalf of the Federal Government in 11,696,547 transactions carried out between 2015 to 2022.
From the transactions carried out, the bank generated N789,294,408.86 fee for the period under consideration.
Addressing the banks’ representatives, the committee requested for all the agreements signed by the banks with Systemspec/REMITA to collect the revenue on behalf of the Federal Government for the period under review.
The lawmakers also demanded a breakdown of Value Added Tax (VAT) and Withholding Tax (WHT) collected within the period and evidence of payment into relevant government coffers.
