EFCC probes Zenith Bank over Rivers State's missing N3.6bn

EFCC probes Zenith Bank over Rivers State's missing N3.6bn

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is interrogating some officials of Zenith Bank Plc as part of its investigations into the withdrawal of N3.6billion from an account belonging to the Rivers State Government and domiciled with the bank.

A man, whose name was given as Harrison B. A. Princewill, but whose identity is not yet known, is said to have made the withdrawals in about 10 instalments this year.

The development, 9janext learnt, is generating disquiet in the banking industry.

Sources within the EFCC said the bank did not notify the anti-graft body and the Central Bank of Nigeria of the transactions and has not been able to provide details of the real identity of Mr. Princewill.

The Bank is also said not to have been able to explain the nature of its transactions with Mr. Princewill to investigators and was alleged to have failed to file a Suspicious Transaction Report on his withdrawals to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) of the EFCC, as required by law.

The account, number 6010916587, has been domiciled with the bank since 2004; but the unknown customer, believed by investigators to be an official of the Rivers State Government operating under a pseudonym, made the huge withdrawals this year.

The CBN had in November 28 2001 circular directed all banks to refer all complex and unusually large transactions to the EFCC.

The CBN had circularised a Know Your Customer manual to the banks, directing them to take every measure to always ascertain the identities of those who do business with them.

Investigations into the withdrawals, which led to the arrest of some officials of the Rivers State government, including the Governor's Chief of Staff, Nyeson Wike, triggered the resignation of the Director of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, Ashishana Okauru, from office.

Sources quoted the interim report of the investigations as having declared that Mr.Princewill could not be found. Investigators were also said to have insinuated that a top government official might have used the name to siphon public funds.

Chairman of the EFCC, Farida Waziri, had on October 10, 2008, queried Mr. Okauru over Zenith Bank's claim that it filed a suspicious transaction report to the NFIU regarding Mr. Princewill's withdrawals from the account. Ms. Waziri said: "In the course of investigating how Rivers State Government funds were moved through Zenith Bank Plc, Zenith Bank claimed to have filed reports of the movement of these funds with the NFIU and it is surprising that the NFIU did not flag or alert the operations department about the massive movement of funds. Consequently, I will require your explanation on why the NFIU neglected to place an alert with the operations department on the above fund."

But Mr. Okauru, in his reply to the query, said the bank did not submit any STR to his organisation regarding the movement of the controversial funds.