Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has said the CBN will not extend the January 31st deadline for the old naira notes.
There have been calls from different quarters for the extension of the deadline for old naira notes because of some challenges.
He said the apex bank has so far mopped up about N1.5 trillion, hoping to achieve about N2 trillion before the deadline.
He said: “We have pleaded with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) not to harass anybody, and on my honour, they will not do that.”
Emefiele also said the total stamp duty collected by the bank in seven years accrued to N370.7 billion, not N89trillion as alleged by some groups.
Recall that House of Representatives member, Mr Muhammed Kazaure had raised the alarm of alleged theft of stamp duty proceeds running into N89 trillion.
He alleged that the apex bank had not remitted stamp duty revenue to government coffers as tax insisting that the bank remits only 60 per cent to the government while 40 per cent goes to private pockets.
But Emefiele said, “The total banking sector assets as at today is N71 trillion. The total bank deposit is N44.418trillion.so it is not possible to for stamp duty alone to clock more than rhebtotal bank assets and deposit.”
He said of the amount so far disbursed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to the federation account is N226.4Ben, leaving a balance of N144.2Bn.