Nasarawa State Revenue Board Re-Opens Diamond Bank, FCMB

Rabiu Omaku

Twenty four hours after the sealing of all branches of Diamond Bank and First City Monument Bank (FCMB) in Nasarawa state by the State Board of Internal Revenue due to the banks refusal to grant the service access to its cyberspace for tax, economic activities has re-open.

The trouble started following refusal to grant the State Revenue Board Service access to its cyberspace for tax reconciliation, authorities from the affected banks decline comment over the sealing of the financial institutions.

Diamond Bank and FCMB refused to allow our Technical Consultant to go into their cyberspace to download to get the actual numbers of customers in the bank.

Feelers from the banks said the Revenue Board served them demand notice, reminder and gave them warning yet received no positive response. So today we decided to seal off all their branches across the state,” He said.

But the affected banks were seen Friday carrying out their business activities in the state capital, in an interview shortly after the exercise on Wednesday in Lafia, the Chairman, Alhaji Usman Okposhi, said the shutting down exercise was necessitated after several futile efforts to get the two banks to allow the tax institution access to their cyberspace documents to ascertain taxes generated from customers.

He said, the Revenue Board had earlier served all the banks in the state with  notice of intent about two months ago, adding that, Diamond and FCMB banks refused to comply thereby compelling the tax institution to use legal means of shutting down the institutions.