The Ad Hoc Committee on Unclaimed Funds in Nigerian Commercial Banks and Infractions by the Central Bank of Nigeria of the House of Representatives has begun an investigation into funds stuck in Deposit Money Banks, also known as commercial banks, due to the failure to link the account holding them to a Bank Verification Number and the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account policy.
The committee is looking into the over 45 million accounts that are reported to store cash worth over N1.2 trillion.
On January 26, 2022, the House passed a resolution establishing a committee to investigate “suspicious and unclaimed cash” held in various accounts.
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The committee was also directed by the House to look into unremitted payments collected by banks on behalf of federal ministries, departments, and agencies.
The committee was also charged by the House to investigate “many violations by the Central Bank of Nigeria against the requirements of the enabling Act and Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the good people of Nigeria, particularly in the field of intervention projects and programs.”
The committee is expected to come back in eight weeks with recommendations for additional legislative action.
The legislators passed these resolutions after a member, Dachung Bagos, proposed a motion headed “Need to Investigate Unclaimed Funds in Nigerian Commercial Banks and the Infractions by the Central Bank of Nigeria,” which the lawmakers approved.
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Bagos, who moved the motion, stated that the CBN introduced the Bank Verification Number to the Nigerian banking system in 2014 as a means of detecting and combatting money laundering, illegal funding, and duplicitous ownership of bank accounts used for fraud.
He also noted that nearly 45.85 million bank accounts in Nigeria have yet to be linked to BVNs, despite the fact that data released by the Nigerian Inter–Bank Settlement Systems on June 23, 2021 revealed that the total number of bank accounts in Nigeria as of May 2019 was pegged at 122.071 million, with 72.936 million active accounts as of May 2020.
The committee was officially launched on Monday, with representatives from many federal ministries, departments, and organizations, as well as banks, in attendance.
“For commercial banks, our resolution demands that you provide records that would assist us recover unclaimed cash in around 45 million accounts that are not linked to the BVN,” said Unyime Idem, the committee’s chairman, after representatives of the MDAs delivered their views.
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“The House has been able to uncover around 45 million accounts as a result of recent revelations.
Those accounts aren’t connected to BVN in any way.
So, we’d need to know the status of the monies in those accounts, whether you’ve reimbursed the FG or what happened to the funds.
You’re going to provide us with documents to back up these inquiries.”
The committee’s task, according to Idem, is “enormous, essential, and delicate, considering the country’s economic situation.”
“We anticipate that the conclusion of it (the inquiry) would assist the nation in recovering a significant portion of the unclaimed monies that have been lingering in certain Nigerian commercial banks and other unapproved hands,” he added.
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“Money intended for the Federal Government is not supposed to be in the hands of unapproved people for an extended period of time.”
If a contract fails or is not carried out, all money that was disbursed or intended for the Federation Account should be reimbursed to the same source from which it originated.
“However, whether via oversight or design, so much money has been locked down someplace as a result of the recent finding, for whatever purpose.”
That is what prompted the National Assembly, namely the House of Representatives, to convene this investigation.”
“For commercial banks and other agencies that are sitting on these funds that belong to the Federal Government, that are not willing to show cooperation and not willing to refund; for banks that are collecting funds on behalf of the government, I believe this House will have no choice but to stop you from collecting funds on behalf of the government if you do not show cooperation,” the lawmaker said.
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“However, if you do, it will be a win-win situation.”
There would be no problem if we looked at your books and you checked the one that belongs to the government and refunded it accordingly.”
Deputy Speaker of the House, Ahmed Wase, had earlier declared the event open, noting that the motion alleged that nearly N1.2 trillion had not been deposited into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
“So that we can fix the infrastructure gap and other difficulties in our nation,” he added, the investigation was vital.
Ben Akabueze, Director-General of the Budget Office, who spoke on behalf of Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, stated that throughout the years, government officials had sent circulars to those affected to implement the TSA and BVN policies.
“When we received this invitation talking about unclaimed funds in Nigerian commercial banks, basically, my initial reading of this was that it was related to inactive accounts, dormant accounts; because the extant regulation guiding the management of these issued by the CBN in October 2015 provides guidelines for the management of inactive accounts, dormant accounts, and unclaimed funds,” Akabueze said.
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“Any bank must have notified the Federal Government of the existence of any such money belonging to it under those rules.”
I am confident that such money would not exist if they had.
I hope that, without prejudicing this committee’s work, the CBN will likewise do a good job of implementing its own rules.
“As the work of the committee progresses, whatever other specific information required of us as a ministry, we would be able to provide.”
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