ABUJA — The House of Reps has begun investigating an alleged $30 billion revenue leakage caused by payments on account of foreign currency-denominated contracts by companies.
The committee members were led to commence the investigation on Monday in Abuja, by the chairman of the House committee on finance, James Faleke alongside Victor Nwokolo, chair, House Committee on Banking and Currency.
According to Faleke, the committee would also investigate foreign exchange allocation to companies from sources such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) autonomous, interbank domiciliary, and over-the-counter purchase.
“We are all akin to Nigeria’s recurring and growing fiscal deficit, and that to sufficiently finance the Federation’s annual fiscal expenditures, the government is left with no choice but to borrow billions of dollars every year.
“We have also seen the real value of the Naira to the US Dollar drop drastically, the dire consequences of which the Nigerian people are experiencing today,” he said.
This, according to him was irrespective of the enormous inflows of capital importation and foreign direct investment over the years in numbers that one would expect to translate into revenue generation for the country.
Financial Institutions will be appearing before the investigative hearing to explain their role in the alleged $30 billion revenue leakages according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report.
The lawmaker accused Citibank of withholding tax on Value Added Tax (TAX) aggregating to $5 billion and that other foreign exchange revenue leakages of N93 billion were not remitted by Citibank.
Ngozi Omoke-Enyi, Citi Bank Director of Operation, who appeared before the committee, noted that the bank was governed by the foreign exchange monitoring and miscellaneous provision act and as such was not in contravention of the guidelines in the act
She said the CBN from time to time issued guidelines to regulate transactions on foreign exchange, adding that Citibank was not iI
Another bank that appeared before the committee to explain its role was Fidelity while more financial entities are expected to appear before the joint committee rounds off the investigation.
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