NINE out of 21 bank
chief executives, on Monday, failed to honour the invitation of House Committee
on Finance investigating remittance of tax to the Federal Inland Revenue
Service (FIRS).
The House committee, however, threatened that it would not
hesitate to issue warrant of arrest on the affected bank chiefs.
To this end, another invitation was extended to the affected
bank executives to appear tomorrow.
The committee was probing tax returns to FIRS from 2008 to 2012,
as well as level of compliance with collected tax remittances to the
Federal Government within the same period.
The affected banks are Zenith Bank, Sterling Bank, Stanbic IBTC,
Skye Bank, Keystone Bank, FCMB, Ecobank, Enterprise Bank and CitiBank.
Chairman of the committee, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, said
“we don’t take this lightly. These CEOs talk about global best practices at
every turn, yet they fail to honour the parliament’s invitations.
“We will take nothing less than the rank of Executive Director.
If they feel their jobs are more important than a call to parliament, then they
must explain.”
Earlier, Honourable Jibrin had said the exercise was in line
with the oversight mandate of the committee on FIRS and tax matters, stressing
that “our vision is to strengthen the FIRS and optimise the potentials of our
tax system.
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