Management of Nigerian Postal Service said it was not aware of any cartel allegedly collecting and pocketing money belonging to the government on stamp duty.
It said no such monies as mentioned in the media came into NIPOST’s account.
Fresh controversies had surrounded the alleged recovery of about N89 trillion stamp duty funds said to be in various accounts.
The whole issue began when a member of the House of Representatives representing the Kazaure, Roni, Gwiwa, Yankwashi Constituency of Jigawa State, Muhammed Gudaji Kazaure, said in an interview that the Central Bank of Nigeria, Federal Inland Revenue Service and some other agencies were making efforts to frustrate investigations done to recover the alleged N89 trillion stamp revenue.
However, a statement over the weekend and signed by Sunday Arieyerni Adepoju, Postmaster General/CEO, NIPOST, said NIPOST was not aware of such money.
Moreover, he said it was not in charge of the account as NIPOST had no opportunity, privilege or access to the account as it was opened by the Central Bank of Nigeria, using its name – NIPOST.
It stated further: “The attention of the Management of Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has been drawn to media reports on controversy trailing the allegedly missing N89.09tr (Eighty-Nine Trillion, Nine Million Naira) stamp duty fund. The report alleged among others that certain characters apparently formed a cartel with collaborators in the Nigerian Postal Service and were allegedly collecting and pocketing the money.
“The stamp duty account was opened by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in consultation with the office of the Accountant General of the Federation in the name of NIPOST Stamp Duties Collection Account.
“This is an account which NIPOST had absolutely no opportunity, privilege or access to. It was NIPOST’s in name only.
“All deductions of stamp duties for and on behalf of NIPOST were carried out by the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) at source and directly remitted to the said dedicated NIPOST Stamp Duties Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the total aggregated collection stood at Fifty- Nine billion, Three Hundred Million naira (N59.3billion) only as at May, 2020, when it was moved to the Federation Account following the controversy with Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as to which age, of Government has the right to collect stamp duty.
“For the record, NIPOST is not aware of any cartel allegedly collecting and pocketing money belonging to the government on stamp duty and no such monies as mentioned came into NIPOST’s account,” the statement said in part.
