Reps panel discovers N300 billion in commercial banks

The House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating unclaimed funds in commercial banks has said it uncovered N300 billion unclaimed funds in some commercial banks.

The committee disclosed this on Wednesday when some banks appeared before it in Abuja.

The committee, chaired by Uyime Idem (PDP, Akwa-Ibom), was mandated to investigate the status of “the suspicious unclaimed funds trapped in commercial banks, including the advance payments for government contracts”.

In addition, the committee is to investigate an alleged infraction by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Mr Idem said the committee has so far discovered N300 billion and is upbeat about discovering more than N1.3trillion.

Mr Idem had said Citi Bank is owing the federal government about N99 billion, with the breakdown as follow; $287 million (when converted to naira) and N72 million.

However, bank’s representative disagreed with the figure bandied by the lawmakers.

Citi Bank’s Executive-Director, Operations and Technology, Ngozi Omoke-Eyi, said the bank has only seven accounts, adding that the account with the highest amount has N203,000 in that account.

Afolabi Olamilekan (APC, Osun), a member of the committee, accused the bank of committing criminal act by changing the document submitted to the committee. He, therefore, moved a motion for Ms Omoke-Eyi to be put under oath.

Explaining how the committee arrived at N99 billion, Mr Idem said the committee computed the balances in all accounts without link to the BVN

AND  arrived at this N99 billion

Mr Omoke-Eyi denied that she changed any document. However, following the argument between the committee and the representative of the bank, it was resolved that the bank should sit down with the consultants working with the committee.

The representatives of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) also appeared before the committee. Mr Idem said the commission is indebted to the federal government to the tune of N5.2 billion. The Director of Finance and Accounts of NIPC, James Akwada, who represented the agency, pleaded for some time to work with the consultants to reconcile the two accounts.