The House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on the recovery of N1.2 trillion unclaimed funds in commercial banks, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has disclosed that it has so far discovered over N300 billion since the start of its investigation.
Chairman of the Committee, Unyime Idem (PDP, Akwa Ibom) disclosed this after a session with Citi Bank and officials of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) on Wednesday.
He disclosed that the Committee was mandated after a resolution of the House on January 26th, 2022, to investigate and recover the N1.2 trillion due to the 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.
Earlier, the chairman informed the management team of Citi Bank that, the Bank is owing a total of N99 billion out of the N1.2 trillion being owed the federal government by about 500 entities which include Commercial Banks, MDAs and others.
He presented a list of accounts that he said were holding such funds in Citi Bank which he said officials of the bank need to explain.
Members of the committee who made observations specifically asked the officials to explain the status of accounts belonging to ABS Ltd, Global Offshore Ltd and Titan Energy Ltd which they said were holding funds in both Naira and Dollars.
However, the Executive Director, Operations and Technology of the Bank, Ngozi Omoke-Enyi said that the letter sent by the Committee which was specific on what was required had been complied with.
She disclosed that they have submitted seven (7) accounts to the committee which were accounts without Bank Verification Number (BVN).
However, the Committee insisted that, based on the documents submitted by the bank, they extracted more than seven accounts that need to be scrutinised.
After the deliberations, the Citi Bank officials were told to reconcile their accounts and appear again for clarifications.
On the other hand, the Committee while addressing officials of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), said according to their records, the Council was owing to the federal government N5.2 billion in unremitted revenue, operating surplus and other funds from 2015 to 2021.
The Director of Finance, NIPC, James Akwa who appeared before the Committee sought an extension of time to reconcile their accounts
He informed the Committee that, they made only two remittances as stated by the Committee due to the issues they had since 2016.
The Committee, therefore, granted the NIPC one week to reconcile and reappear before it next Wednesday.
