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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