Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, SBH’s Chief Operating Officer, Adetola Adekoya, said the non-compliance by banks is caused by delay in issuing a circular to implement the remittances by Central Bank of Nigeria.
He explained that the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) in January this year entered into a strategic partnership with SBH to designate three banks to drive an initiative in the collection of the mandated stamp-duty charges on all bank receipts which include bank tellers and electronic transfers with values of N1, 000 and above as stipulated in the Stamp Duty Act 2004 (amended in 2010) and NIPOST Act 2004.
According to him, the banks appointed for the project which would have fetched Nigeria about 300,000 fresh jobs are Stanbic IBTC, Unity Bank and United Bank of Africa (UBA).
Adekoya disclosed that the project is stalled over the past 11 months due to CBN’s inaction and failure to issue a circular mandating all financial institutions to comply with NIPOST’s statutory mandates.
He wondered why the apex bank was delaying the process this time around having issued similar circular in 2009 to all banks for compliance to the Stamp Duties Act 2004.
He said: “We have already drawn up 14 products revolving around the initiative that would sustain our target of 300, 000 jobs. We have signed an agreement with NIPOST, and everything is in place to begin but the CBN circular is delaying the project.”
According to a letter, dated 3rd December, 2012 signed by Dipo Fatokun, CBN Director, Banking and Payment systems department which was made available to Daily Trust indicated that the apex bank has no objection to the project.
Fatokun, in the letter, said: “The CBN has objection to your actualising the Master Service Agreement between your company and NIPOST on the appointment of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and other financial institutions as collecting agents for the stamping and remittance of all teller deposit receipts and electronic transfer receipts. Expected that all revenues accruing to the federal government from this transaction will be duly swept into its coffers on a monthly basis.”
