Unity Bank has faulted the allegation against it by Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property (SPIPRPP) over the ongoing reconciliation of the affected MDA accounts.
It says the report is geared towards misinforming the public and misrepresenting the bank’s position and nil impact resolutions reached during the reconciliation engagements. This is contained in a press released from the bank on Tuesday.
According to the press statement, in the ongoing investigation, the bank has conducted itself professionally by providing all evidence of customers instructions requested by the panel as it relates to all the MDAs. The bank had earlier transferred all the MDAs balances to their respective TSA accounts in Central Bank of Nigeria as far back in 2016.
Upon approaching the bank in 2018 to conduct investigations on the subject MDAs, the bank cooperated with the panel accordingly. But out of its own volition, the panel refused to admit further documentary evidence from the bank when it was obvious that the bank had no balances kept in its books for the MDAs.
Instead, the panel suspended the investigation, as apparently could not fault any of the evidence presented by the bank.
The panel in an earlier letter requested the bank to accept culpability and pay off a certain sum deemed outstanding, which the bank objected and insisted on completing the reconciliation exercise because the claims presented at this point against it were unfounded and frivolous.
It is therefore surprising for the SPIPRPP to turn back and issue statement to allege sabotage when it abandoned its sitting and investigation midway.
Furthermore, it must be emphasised that, without prejudice to the constitutional power of Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC) as the sole agency of government to investigate, review, reconcile and collect revenue for government, the bank cooperated fully with SPIPRPP and its consultants in the investigation process.
Also, it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that Unity Bank has all records to show that it does its banking transactions transparently and in compliance with extant regulations and at no time took charges on the MDAs that are outside what are contained in the Bankers Tariffs that guide banking operations in Nigeria.
The allegations of SPIPRPP are superfluous, frivolous ill motivated and unfounded as falsely presented in the news purportedly sent to the public.
We hereby call on our customers and the general public to disregard the allegations, which is subterfuge aimed to unnecessarily smear the image of the bank, the bank said.
