N1.2 Trillion Unclaimed Funds:Reps committee discovers N300bn in commercial banks, MDAs

…..Accuses Citi Bank of falsifying documents

The House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on the recovery of N1.2 trillion unclaimed funds in commercial banks, Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that it has discovered over N300 billion since the beginning of its investigation.

The Chairman of the Committee, Unyime Idem (PDP, Akwa Ibom) made this known after a session with Citi Bank on Wednesday.

Idem stressed that the Committee was mandated after a resolution of the House on January 26th, 2022, to investigate and recover the N1.2 trillion due federal government hanging in Commercial Banks, MDAs and other places.

According to him, the funds trapped were in dormant bank accounts in domestic and foreign currencies, accounts without BVN, failed contracts, excess unremitted funds and others.

The lawmakers during the investigative hearing organized by the Adhoc committee alledged that Citi bank owed the Federal Government of Nigeria N99 billion from accumulated failed transactions and hanging funds.

Members of the Adhoc Committee had raised alarm over the differences in the documents submitted by Citi bank which showed different figures and number of customers from the recent documents submitted by the bank.

Hon. Mohammed Bio noted that the action of Citi bank was criminal and insisted that the representative of the bank should be put on oath to explain the differences.

“they (Citi bank) had earlier submitted an account record of customers without BVN (Bank Verification Number) with a number of 11 people with huge sums of money but today they made another submission on the content but the figures and number of customers stood at 7 with just little money to their names which makes it curious”

Chairman of the Committee, Unyime Idem
(PDP, Akwa Ibom)

“What are they trying to hide or could this be an after thought that they had to bring this new documents” He asked.

The executive director of operations and technology, Mrs. Ngozi Omokeme who represented Citi Bank while responding to the lawmakers said that they had nothing to hide that the documents submitted were not falsified.

“with all due respect we are not here to change any documents. Also I am not here to falsify any documents. I did not any document that is outside what we have earlier submitted. The documents are consistently the same”, she added.

Idem further stressed that “a situation where we have been borrowing money to fund major capital projects while we can get such within is unacceptable. So far we have discovered N300 billion which is just a little percent of what we are trying to recover”

He added that the committee was still studying documents and reports sent to it by banks and government agencies, adding that it would help the committee to recover more funds.

“The commercial banks are regulated by government and they cannot refused us. This assignment is crucial. We will not allow any government agencies or commercial bank to undermine our power.

“If the commercial banks fail to appear the next line of action will be to summon,” he said.

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