EFCC Summons Skye Bank MD Over Alleged N6.3 Billion TSA Fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has invited the Managing Director of Skye Bank Plc, Mr. Timothy Oduntayo, and the bank’s chief compliance officer over the bank’s deliberate refusal to transfer N6.3 billion lodged in two separate accounts with it to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

This, according to the commission, amounted to non-compliance with the directive of the federal government on funds in deposit money banks.

EFCC disclosed that the invitation followed the sudden discovery that the funds belonging to the defunct Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of the Federal Government Landed Property, was overlooked by the bank in the TSA compliance arrangement, despite the accounts being dormant since 2011.

“There is strong suspicion that the funds were covertly hidden from the government as only the bank and members of the committee that had long wound up its operations were aware of its existence,” an EFCC source said.

The committee which had B.B. Awojide, as secretary, operated from Room 4A, (3rd floor), Federal Secretariat Phase1 in Abuja.

Both accounts have already been frozen by the EFCC while investigations continue.

However, Mr. Kola Adeyemi, who said he is the secretary of the committee, stated that the allegations were spurious.

He said the committee is not defunct as erroneously alleged by the EFCC and the accounts with Skye Bank were not dormant.

He revealed that the reason the accounts were not in use stemmed from the change from the old account numbers used by banks to NUBAN, which has since been ratified.