The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Unclaimed Federal Government Funds in Banks, Other Financial Institutions and Ministries, Departments has began investigations into the missing of over N1.2 trillion in revenue by banks other financial institutions and MDAs of government
Chairman of the House Committee Hon. Uyime Idem and other committee members at an investigative hearing grilled the Chief Executive Officer of CitiBank group and other top officials of government establishments on the issue on Wedneday.
The lawmaker had hinted that a whopping N1.2 trillion is unaccounted for by heads of banks and other financial institutions who are by law mandated to remit a certain portion of their revenue to the coffers of government on annual basis
He had informed reporters that the House at plenary on January 26th 2022 passed a resolution on the matter mandating the Ad-hoc Committee to recover the missing N1.2 trillion from these entities.
He added that through the investigation, the probe panel had so far discovered over N300bn from the accounts of these banks and government officials
While probing the repsentatative of the CitiBank group Ms Ngozi Nwokedi the lawmaker said that there are discrepancies in the documents relating to banking transactions of some individuals and corporate entities that operate accounts with the bank.
He said:”Our panel is a fact finding one. What we want to know is when are you paying the money into the account of the federal government. The infraction by the CitiBank is about N99 billion”.
Moreover, in a presentation, a representative of the Managing Director of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission NIPC Mr James Akpada also told the the panel that the agency is indebted to the federal government to the tune of N5.2 billion.
He also stated that the agency had not been making revenue until 2018 when it started making little revenue adding that they had been complying since then with the payment.
In his ruling, Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee Hon Idem said that all the invited bank CEOs and government officials who shortchanged the federal government on the issue ‘ll face parliamentary sanctions.
He added that the invited bank official who were asked to do reconciliation of the figures in the documents submitted to the probe panel should do so within seven working days.