The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been mandated to explain why $21.3 billion remitted to the apex bank by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as foreign tax in 2015 has a shortfall of $3.3 billion.
The call was made by the Senate committee on public accounts, on Wednesday, June 4, 2020.
According to Senate, the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation in an audit query revealed that while FIRS recorded $21.3 billion as total sum of foreign tax collected by it in 2015 and domiciled in the apex bank, CBN on the other hand, recorded $18 billion, Premium Times reports.
The Senate also revealed that CBN’s deputy governor (Corporate Affairs), Edward Lamatek Adamu, was unable to satisfactorily give a reason for the missing money.
Senate acted on an audit query raised against the CBN by the Office of the auditor-general.
Adamu had claimed that the $3.3 billion was not missing or unremitted.
He was reported to have said that variations in exchange rate during the period resulted in variation of amounts recorded by FIRS and CBN.
This did not go well with the Senate and as a result, the upper chamber has called for documents to back the claim up.
Legit.ng earlier reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Sunday, May 31, 2020, denied videos and pictures of the purported circulation of N2,000 and N5,000 banknotes in the country. It was gathered that this was disclosed in a tweet via the official Twitter handle of the bank.
The apex bank warned that the banknotes are false and fake. CBN called on Nigerians to disregard claims of such banknotes and urged members of the public to report anyone found in possession of such to law enforcement agencies.
It would be noted that back in 2012, Nigeria’s apex bank under the leadership of former Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said it was going to introduce a N5,000 banknote into the country early 2013.
At that time the former CBN governor said the new banknotes which would have been the highest denomination were to be introduced as a result of inflationary pressures on the Nigerian currency.
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