Bankers Join Whistleblowing Bandwagon, Expose Illicit Transactions of Public Officers

Bankers, mainly account officers, have started to take advantage of the federal government’s whistleblowing policy to report the wrongdoings of former and current public office holders suspected to have embezzled public funds and stashed them in several Nigerian banks, investigations by THISDAY have revealed.

A reliable source with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who disclosed this at the weekend, said that some bankers have been encouraged largely by the reward of between 2.5 per cent (minimum) and five per cent (maximum) of the total amount recovered.

According to the source, several former and current public officers who had allegedly stolen from the treasury either hid the physical cash in safe houses or used shell companies, close aides, associates and family members to stash the ill-gotten funds in bank accounts using the names of the companies or their friends, family members and associates.

However, though the accounts are not in the names of the political office holders, they usually operate the accounts themselves, a fact that is well known by the bank account officers who help them to manage the accounts.
As a result, since the federal government unveiled the whistleblowing policy as a means of recovering stolen public sector funds, a number of junior and middle-level bankers have been quietly ratting on the true beneficiaries of the accounts in order to cash in on the rewards derivable from the policy.

The EFCC source informed THISDAY that once the commission is contacted by a banker, it is usually easy to identify the real beneficiary of the bank accounts through the Bank Verification Number (BVN), since an account holder can only have one BVN for all of his individual and company accounts.
The source said: “Junior to middle-level account officers in the banks are the major whistleblowers. That is why we (EFCC) have been recovering a lot of money since the policy was unveiled.

Thisday, March 20, 2017

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