The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has slammed a fine of N4 billion on Skye Bank Plc for failing to render appropriate returns on accounts of some government institutions and agencies as directed by the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy.
In a two page statement signed by the Group Managing Director, Timothy Oguntayo and forwarded to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday, confirmed the fine which was said to have been issued on the 6th of November.
Skye Bank said it did not at any time conceal any information from the CBN in relation to the amount in question.
According to the statement: “the sum of N40 billion for which was penalized consists of various NNPC account balances, NNPC Pension Funds account and National Assembly legislative aides account balances”
The Bank claimed that it had received from the Accountant General of the Federation through the NNPC on the treatment of the NNPC funds.
“The bank was advised that an 18 business day window had been granted by the vice president within which a plan for orderly withdrawal of the NNPC funds would be implemented”, the statement read.
The bank further argued that the money for which the penalty was applied belong to organs the CBN confirmed as not federal government agencies and amount erroneously transferred to CBN on them by some banks have been refunded.
Would recall a similar fine of N4.8billion on First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) and United Bank for Africa (UBA) for non-compliance with the TSA.
The banks were penalized for not remitting to the Federation Account, N96.4 billion belonging to the NNPC.
The affected banks; First Bank was said to have concealed N37.55 billion, while UBA concealed N58.8 billion NNPC funds, attracting a penalty worth five per cent of the funds concealed.
The banks were reported to have argued that they had a directive from the Accountant-general of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, exempting some MDAs from transferring their funds to the TSA.
The CBN maintained its stance that all MDAs must remit their funds to the TSA.
President Muhammadu Buhari gave the September 15 deadline for banks to remit monies from MDA accounts with various commercial banks into a single federation account.
Credit : Daily Trust
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