The Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) says over N40million has been recovered for the Nigerian government from an unnamed commercial bank.
SPIP said the name of the bank was withheld to avoid panic among its customers.
Lucie-Ann Laha, the panel’s Head of Media and Communication, said the discovery is as a result of investigation which SPIP did on government agencies accounts that operated from 2009 to 2015 in one of the commercial banks. He added that the new recovery was different from the $20 million earlier recovered by the panel.
A statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, read: “The recovery (the N40 million) was made as a result of findings by a team of the panel’s investigation into accounts of Federal Government agencies operated by commercial banks from 2009 to 2015.
“The investigation panel had earlier assigned a team of forensic auditors with the task of x-raying the operations of Federal Government accounts domiciled in commercial banks within that period, with a view to establishing whether or not such accounts had been subjected to arbitrary or excessive charges, interest shortfalls, accrued interests or other illegal dealings.
“Arising from its findings, the panel, in a letter dated January 19, 2019, issued a demand notice to the bank for N230,144,784.34, comprising of N180,932,793.39k and $161,350.79, to which the bank objected.
“Following the objection, therefore, the panel and the bank held a joint reconciliation meeting and agreed that the amount actually due for refund was N40,336,186.25. The money has since been paid into the panel’s TSA Recovery Account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“The reconciliation team also agreed that $56,919.10 should equally return to the coffers of the Federal Government.
“This recovery is different from the $20 million earlier reported by the panel. It may be recalled that the panel recently informed Nigerians that it had recovered $20 million from a commercial bank, being part of money deposited into the bank by a government agency which failed to transfer same to the government’s TSA account.
“That report had said the $20 million was initial part refund of $232 million, adding that the bank had committed to refunding $10 million monthly until the refund was completed.
“As in the earlier case, the panel refrains from naming the bank in question, in order to prevent panic by its customers.
“SPIP, however, remains resolute in its commitment to recover looted public property and bringing to book all who contribute to the economic adversity of Nigeria.”
