The House of Representatives has quizzed First Bank of Nigeria Ltd, management over the N94.345 billion revenue collected on behalf of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and other allegation bothering on breach of agreement on the Commission on Turnover, (CoT) charges to the tune of N28.3 million.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Rep Oluwole Oke, on Thursday while addressing First Bank Executive Director, Mr Shehu Aliyu during the investigative hearing into the audit queries issued by the office of the Auditor General for the Federation (oAuGF), at its Public Hearing acknowledged receipt of the amended report submitted by First Bank with respect to the additional sum of N9.4 million.
Oke explained that the Bank was invited to respond to the oAuGF audit query that the Nigerian Customs Service was over-charged by the banks in area of CoT.
He observed that presentations made by representatives of some banks including First Bank who made presentations twice, were found to be at variance with the agreement signed by NCS authorities.
According to the oAuGF’s query, First back in an MoU charged 30k and other commissions amounting to N1.3 billion, thereby raising the commission to N1 as against the 30k originally charged.
In his response, Mr Aliyu who affirmed that the Bank ought to collect 30k per N1,000 as stipulated in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both parties however, noted that in addition to the 30k charge, there was another charge of 10k for Inter-switch.
According to him, the Bank had during the last public hearing, informed the Committee of its plan to tender a new report to reflect the new 10k charge.
Asked the difference between 30k per N1,000 and 30k per million, he said the Bank are one and the same, but that the team would adopt 30k per N1,000.
In his intervention, Oke stated that; “Our worry is that, in your latest presentation, we consider it an afterthought, because for a bank of the status of First Bank to make presentation on oath and now say you are changing it.
“Other bank’s made presentations and they didn’t mention such a thing, and we find it very difficult to accept your presentation except we are convinced beyond reasonable doubt.
“You signed an agreement with Customs to take 30k per N1,000 and out of which you would settle Inter-switch, but turn round to charge additional 10k is somehow.”
While responding, Mr. Aliyu observed that over the period, January to December 2019, First Bank collected the sum of N94.3 billion on behalf of the Nigeria Customs Service, and we charged a total of N28.3 million on 30k per N1,000, adding that the net remittance on daily basis aggregated to N94.345 billion.
“This is a straight forward matter and what the audit query pointed out has not changed,” he stated.
Speaking on the presentation, the lawmakers maintained that the bank over-charged the Customs Service and only amended its report by adding N9.4 million to the existing figure in the previous report to arrive at N94.3 billion remittance to the Customs.
In his ruling, Oke maintained that; “First Bank is one of the big banks we have in this country, and wouldn’t want to waste time on this matter. We ‘ll demand from Customs net and gross payment made by First Bank, and the last page of the bank statement of that year will show the balances.
“So, we will raise a committee of 3 led by the Deputy Chairman which will examine the statement of account and the last page which shows the balance of net payment and gross earnings,” he added