High Court
Justice Chuka Obiozor of the Federal High Court, Lagos, yesterday ordered some commercial banks in the country to temporarily remit a total of $793,200,000 to the Federal Government.
The funds were allegedly hidden with the banks in contravention of the Federal Government’s policy on lodgment of money into the Treasury Single Account (TSA). The judge ordered the banks to remit the various amounts to the designated asset recovery account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Some of the banks had earlier been cleared by the apex bank, which said they had remitted all outstanding Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NNPC/NLNG) deposits in their possession.
According to court papers filed by counsel to the Attorney General of the Federation, Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN), a total of $367.4m was illegally hidden by three government agencies, while a sum of $41m was illegally kept in a NAPIMS fixed deposit account.
The court papers stated that several millions of dollars were equally trapped in five other banks.A lawyer from Akinseye-George’s law firm, Vincent Adodo, who deposed to a 15-paragraph affidavit in support of an ex parte application filed by the AGF, stated that seven banks colluded with Federal Government officials to hide the funds in breach of the government’s TSA policy.
The funds, he said, were revenues, donations, transfers, refunds, grants, taxes, fees, dues and tariffs accruable to the Federal Government from different ministries, departments, parastatals and agencies.
Adodo said the banks had failed to remit the funds to TSA domiciled in CBN in violation of the guidelines issued by the accountant general of the federation, who fixed September 15, 2015 as the deadline for such funds to be moved.
He said: “The 1st to 7th respondents (banks), in collaboration with and/or collusion with unknown officials of the Federal Government, conspired to disobey the relevant constitutional provisions.”
Akinseye-George, urged the judge to order the banks to remit the funds to prevent them from being moved or dissipate.He, subsequently, adjourned till August 8, 2017 for anyone interested in the funds to appear before him to show cause why the interim orders should not be made permanent.
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