EFCC summons bank chief over N6.3b TSA fraud

• Agency recovers $2.3m arms fund
• Sagay wants five per cent of recovered loot for anti-graft agencies
The managing director of a new generation bank has been summoned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly hiding two accounts from the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account policy.

A top source who confided in The Guardian yesterday stated that the bank chief and his chief compliance officer will be questioned on; “the bank’s deliberate refusal to move N6.3 billion lodged in two separate accounts with it to the Treasury Single Account in compliance with the directive of the Federal Government on funds in deposit money banks.”

In another development, the EFCC said it has recovered $2.33 million from one of the suspects in the arms procurement contract scandal in the Office of the National Security Adviser.

This is part of the $2.1 billion and another N643 billion arms procurement funds that the commission has been working to recover for the Federal Government.

The decision to invite the bank officials was taken when the anti-graft agency discovered that the funds belonging to the defunct Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of the Federal Government Landed Property, was overlooked by the bank in the TSA compliance arrangement despite the accounts being dormant since 2011.

“There is strong suspicion that the funds were covertly hidden from the government as only the bank and members of the committee that had long wounded up operation were aware of its existence,” the source informed.

Another source at the commission however informed that both accounts have been blocked by the EFCC as investigations continue.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, has advocated that anti-corruption agencies should have access to five per cent of recovered funds to execute their campaigns.

He also implored the Federal Government to take the lead by funding anti-graft activities directly, just as the senior lawyer advised that international bodies and the private sector be encouraged to bankroll their activities as well.

Sagay made the calls yesterday in Abuja while addressing a symposium on how to fund the nation’s anti-corruption drive.
Also speaking, a panelist from the United Kingdom, Oliver Blake, urged the international community to do more in helping Nigeria fight corruption, especially in the area of recovering looted funds from overseas bank accounts.

Earlier, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, in his keynote address, said the nation was paying dearly for its over-reliance on oil and corruption in the face of the prevailing economic quagmire.
He dismissed insinuations that the crisis had anything to do with ongoing government’s anti-graft drive.