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CURTESY
CALL: Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State (L), and the Managing Director,
Brass LNG, Mr. Vincenzo di Lorenzo, during a meeting at the Government House,
Yenagoa
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The police have begun
investigations into the depletion of a US$3.7bn account of the Brass/Liquefied
Natural Gas Company.
The
Brass/Liquefied Natural Gas Account Number 2011104669, which is domiciled in
the First Bank of Nigeria, has been depleted to US$469.4m.
It
was learnt that the police had frozen the balance through a court order while
investigations continued into why the money was not remitted to the Treasury
Single Account in the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The
probe, being handled by the Special Investigation Panel, headed by Ali Ahmodu,
a retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, uncovered that the balance in
the account was not remitted to the TSA in violation of an order by the Federal
Government, directing all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to close all
deposit accounts in commercial banks and remit same to the CBN.
The
SIP was established by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to
investigate unresolved high-profile cases in the country.
A
highly-placed source in the police informed our correspondent on Thursday that
the SIP had interrogated some FBN and CBN officials over the flagrant disregard
for the government directive on TSA.
The
source stated that the CBN was indicted by the panel for keeping sealed lips
over the violation of the TSA directive by the commercial bank.
He
added, “It is a US dollar account domiciled in the First Bank of Nigeria and it
was discovered to have a total credit remittance of US$3.7bn out of which US$3.2bn
was withdrawn between August 1, 2008, and August 29, 2016.
“The
current balance of US$469,427,562.85 has been frozen on the order of the court.
Officials of the bank and the CBN have been invited to explain why the balance
sum was not transferred to the TSA account and why the apex bank kept sealed
lips on such action for over one year. We are also investigating the
withdrawal.”
The
FBN Corporate Affairs Manager, Babatunde Lasaki, could not be reached for
comment as calls to his phone failed to connect.
He
had yet to respond to an SMS as of the time of filing this report.
Also,
attempts to get the comments of the CBN were not successful as calls made to
the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Isaac Okoroafor, did
not go through.
Similarly,
a text message sent to his mobile had yet to be responded to as of the time of
filing this report.
The
CBN had, on August 23, sanctioned nine deposit money banks for hiding over US$2.274bn
belonging to the NNPC from the TSA.
The
errant banks were banned from the foreign exchange market until they remitted
all the funds to the TSA.
The
offending banks were mandated to move the money to the TSA before they would be
considered from further participation in forex trading.
The
banks were readmitted into the foreign exchange market on August 31.
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| The SIP was established by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to investigate unresolved high-profile cases in the country. |
It’s
not true, says Brass LNG
The
General Manager, External Relations, Brass LNG Limited, Mr. Gabriel Obando,
however, stated that the allegation of the depletion of the account, which had
led to the probe, was not true.
In
an SMS to one of our correspondents on Thursday, Obando said, “Thank you for
your enquiry. But please, be informed that the claim in this story (allegation)
is totally false; and Brass LNG cannot comment further on a story that is
untrue in all respects.”
The
Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Mohammed
Garba-Deen, requested that some details on the investigation be sent to his
mobile in order to channel the enquiry to the right department of the corporation.
Garba-Deen had yet to get back to The PUNCH as of the time of filing this report on Thursday.
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