The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
would like to inform the general public of the chronology of events that led
the Management of the CBN to handover some unscrupulous staff to the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution.
During a routine internal audit of the
Bank’s Cash Destruction activities in September 2014, the CBN Briquetting Panel
comprising Senior Bank Staff from different branches noticed some anomalies at
the Ibadan Branch, and immediately reported this to the Bank’s Management. On
further investigation ordered by the Governor, it was discovered that a
systematic scheme, which has been on for several years, was being run in which
mutilated higher denomination notes originally meant for destruction were
swapped with lower denomination currencies. This practice known as
interleafing, basically labels a box with a higher value than its true content.
As soon as the Bank’s internal
investigations concluded beyond reasonable doubt that some wrongdoing had
occurred, the affected members of staff who are middle-level officers were,
depending on gravity of offence, either summarily dismissed or immediately
placed on indefinite suspension on 21 October 2014, and all handed over to the
EFCC for further investigation and prosecution. The CBN has also conducted a
nationwide audit of all 37 branches of the Bank and found that this was an
isolated scheme at Ibadan Branch. The Bank will continue to collaborate with
the EFCC to ensure that affected CBN staff, as well as their accomplices in
some commercial banks, are brought to justice.
Signed
Ibrahim
Mu’azu,
Director, Corporate Communications
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