The House of Representatives adhoc Committee on the assessment and status of all recovered federal Government assets has threatened to invoke all relevant powers on the Chief Executive of five commercial banks over their failure to appear before committee, investigating the matter.
The Managing Directors of First Bank, Polaris Bank, Sterling Bank, Heritage Bank, Keystone Bank and Fidelity Bank have sent representatives mostly Executive Directors, while Polaris sent the Bank’s Legal Adviser, at the resumption of the investigation.
Members of the adhoc Committee rejected the representation of Polaris Bank insisting that the Chief Executive of the bank must appear before the committee as the representative cannot speak for the banks.
Ruling on the matter after a motion was moved to that effect, the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Adeogun Adejoro said the banks’ CEO’s non- appearance indicated the bank’s disregard to the parliament as an institution.
He said the House through the committee will ask the Central Bank of Nigeria to take over the ownership of the Bank “for owing the Federal Government more money than your entire share capital.
If your Bank refuses to come out straight and continue to play pranks with us, we will issue a warrant of arrest against your MD.
You people can take somebody’s money and start playing with it? 32 Million Dollars is what we are talking about here.”
The committee insisted on the appearance of heads of the affected agencies at an adjourned date slated for Wednesday next week.
Other Banks appearing before the committee were the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM Bank) and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Bilkisu Pai
