Stamp Duty: CBN Debunks N89trn HoR Claim, Says DMBs Collected Only N370.686bn

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has debunked the claims by Muhammed Kazaure, a member of the House of Representatives, in a petition to the president in 2022 that it is holding on to N89 trillion stamp duty collected by the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).

Speaking to the newsmen after the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the apex bank in Abuja on Tuesday, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele said that the total revenue collected as stamp duty between 2016 and 2022 stood at N370.686 billion.

He explained that the money was not N89 trillion as claimed by the member of the House of Representatives, explaining that the CBN was not withholding N89 trillion.

Emefiele said the clarification became necessary following allegation that an humongous sum of N89 trillion collected as stamp duty had been stolen.

According to him, the total assets of all banks in the country was N44 trillion. “From 2016 till date, stamp duty collection has amounted to N30, 686 billion.

“The federal Inland Revenue Service has disbursed N226.451 billion of the money to the federation Account Committee, while the balance of N144, 235billion is in the central bank,’ he said.

Giving the breakdown of the money, he said: “Total assets of all banks is N71 trillion; Total deposit in banks is N44 trillion, and from 2016 till date, stamp duty collection has amounted to N370.686 billion.

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

He added that the CBN had appointed four world-class audit firms to go into the books of banks to verify if there was any un-remitted stamp duty. If there is any uncollected stamp duty, the banks will pay to the last kobo,” he assured.