According to Premium Times, members of the House and 7th Senate committee on Public Accounts contravened the Money Laundering Act dur...
According to Premium Times, members of the House and 7th Senate
committee on Public Accounts contravened the Money Laundering Act
during their tenure in the National Assembly – a law which was enacted
by them.
The Public Account Committee is saddled with the task of ensuring accountability in the country’s financial system.
However, members of the committee allegedly withdrew several huge
sums repeatedly, thus
contravening the law on money laundering.
The Act states that:
“No person or body corporate shall, except in a transact through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding
1. N5, 000,000.00, or its equivalent, in the case of individuals, or
2. N10, 000,000.00 or its equivalent in the case of a body corporate.
“Any financial institution or designated financial institution that
fails to comply with the above provision by making appropriate
compliance report to the regulatory authorities commits an offence and
is liable on conviction to a fine of not less than N250, 000 for an
individual and not more than N1,000,000 for a body corporate, for each
day during which the offence continues.”
In total, members of the committee made 139 withdrawal of a total sum
of N1.45 billion from two accounts domiciled with Guarantee Trust Bank
(GTB).
According to Premium Times, representatives of the committee D. E
Abdullahi and P. A. Giwa, acting on the instructions of the committee,
allegedly made several withdrawals from the two accounts. The
withdrawals contravened the Money Laundering Act.
While the House committee chairman, Rep. Solomon Adeola, made several
withdraws that also broke the law he and his colleagues enacted.
The senate committee was headed by Sen. Ahmed Lawal. The committee had a total of 41 members.
