Senate Moves To Publish Names Of Importers, Bank On Alleged N30tn Forex fraud
The Senate has vowed to publish names of importers and banks involving in the ongoing investigation into over N30 trillion alleged foreign exchange frauds perpetrated between 2006 and 2017.
This was made known by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, while speaking on the second day of meeting with representatives of all commercial banks,
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Ministry of Finance on Thursday.
Ozodinma said the committee had given documents containing names of importers allegedly involved in the act and other details to the commercial banks to study.
He said, as soon as the committee gets reactions from the banks, it will proceed with further investigations on each of the importers.
He emphasised that“The Senate is worried with the state of our economy and we have decided to investigate the dwindling value of our Naira as well as the state of forex that is affecting the economy negatively.
"We will publish the names of importer and banks involved in this fraudulent act.
“The purpose of giving the banks these documents is for them to go and identify the importers that were their customers and work out ways of returning the un-utilised portion of the foreign exchange allocated to
them.
"We have the names of the importers, how much was given to them and other details, which are contained in the documents handed over to the banks." he said.
The lawmakers however bemoaned the release of forex to fictitious importers which he said had denied genuine importers access to Forex, causing economic hardship.
He noted that “commercial banks were trusted and given dealer status, unfortunately we were not able to see the importation that was made with the forex released.
"We profiled utilisation of Forex within the period and went further to establish that letters of credit for doing business were linked to companies abroad.
"We did not stop there, we also went to Customs and there was no evidence of import duty payment, payment of Value Added Tax (VAT) and other requirements."
He therefore stated that the committee had given the banks up to May 3, to appear before it after studying and making submissions on the documents given to them.
He explained that the reason why they were given up to three weeks was to give ample time for them to adequately study the documents to avoid excuses.
He added that the three weeks was also to give the Managing Directors of all the commercial banks the opportunity to be present at the meeting in view of its importance.
He warned that the committee would not accept
representation from any of the banks, adding that the matter ought to be taken seriously by all concerned.
This was made known by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, while speaking on the second day of meeting with representatives of all commercial banks,
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Ministry of Finance on Thursday.
Ozodinma said the committee had given documents containing names of importers allegedly involved in the act and other details to the commercial banks to study.
He said, as soon as the committee gets reactions from the banks, it will proceed with further investigations on each of the importers.
He emphasised that“The Senate is worried with the state of our economy and we have decided to investigate the dwindling value of our Naira as well as the state of forex that is affecting the economy negatively.
"We will publish the names of importer and banks involved in this fraudulent act.
“The purpose of giving the banks these documents is for them to go and identify the importers that were their customers and work out ways of returning the un-utilised portion of the foreign exchange allocated to
them.
"We have the names of the importers, how much was given to them and other details, which are contained in the documents handed over to the banks." he said.
The lawmakers however bemoaned the release of forex to fictitious importers which he said had denied genuine importers access to Forex, causing economic hardship.
He noted that “commercial banks were trusted and given dealer status, unfortunately we were not able to see the importation that was made with the forex released.
"We profiled utilisation of Forex within the period and went further to establish that letters of credit for doing business were linked to companies abroad.
"We did not stop there, we also went to Customs and there was no evidence of import duty payment, payment of Value Added Tax (VAT) and other requirements."
He therefore stated that the committee had given the banks up to May 3, to appear before it after studying and making submissions on the documents given to them.
He explained that the reason why they were given up to three weeks was to give ample time for them to adequately study the documents to avoid excuses.
He added that the three weeks was also to give the Managing Directors of all the commercial banks the opportunity to be present at the meeting in view of its importance.
He warned that the committee would not accept
representation from any of the banks, adding that the matter ought to be taken seriously by all concerned.
Comments
Post a Comment
Disclaimer: The comments on the blog are the views and opinions of the readers and does not represent that of Confluence Reporters.