By Fatima Zahra Muhammad
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says that it discovered N258 million stashed away in the vault of Sterling Bank in Abuja.
The ICPC in a statement issued on Tuesday said that the bank’s Regional and Service managers have been arrested over the act.
The statement said that the discovery was made during a compliance exercise at the bank’s head office in Abuja.
“When the ICPC monitoring team visited the bank and discovered the stashed new Naira notes in the bank’s vault, it was informed that the cash was the remnant of what the CBN had given the bank for onward distribution to its branches.
“The team however found out that only the sum of Five Million Naira (N5m) each was distributed to their various branches,” the statement said.
Similarly, the Commission said that it has arrested the Head of Operations at Keystone Bank located in Mararaba, Nasarawa State.
According to the ICPC, the manager was arrested for deliberately frustrating the bank’s customers by dispensing only N1,000 to customers through its Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
The ICPC said that the manager’s arrest became necessary because the act flouted the CBN’s directive on the distribution of the new notes.
Recall that the ICPC as well as other anti-corruption agencies have been on surveillance of various commercial banks since last week to investigate the alleged hoarding of the new naira notes.
