The unexpected disclosure was made this evening in a simple but devastating tweet shared on CBN’s official Twitter handle.
The affected banks are:
Standard Chartered Bank- ₦2.4 billion
Stanbic IBTC- ₦1.8
Citibank- ₦1.2 billion and
Diamond Bank Plc- ₦250 million.
According to the tweet, the banks will also have to refund a total of $8.134 billion; being part of the punishment for the offence.
Recall that in September 2016, Senator Dino Melaye proposed a motion before the Senate in which he alleged that telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria, illegally repatriated about $14 billion to South Africa between 2006 and 2016.
The petition implicated the above-mentioned banks, while also alleging that Nigeria’s Minister for Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, played a huge role in facilitating the crime.
Although the matter was initially investigated following the petition, the Senate in July 2017 temporarily absolved the telco of any wrongdoing. It ordered that more investigation into the alleged crime be carried out, after which the initial report exonerating MTN was approved.
The Senate also blamed the development on CBN’s failure to regulate Nigeria’s Forex, while equally directing the apex bank to sanction Stanbic IBTC Bank over what it said was “improper documentation in respect to capital repatriation and loan repayments” on MTN’s behalf.
CBN punishes all the banks
It is interesting that the CBN has chosen to punish all four banks, seeing as the initial directive from Nigeria’s Senate is to sanction only Stanbic IBTC Bank. Apparently, all four banks are guilty of the infraction; a revelation that most possibly came to light after the apex bank took time to investigate the matter.
Anyway, this is not a good development for any of the banks involved. And as one commenter observed on the CBN tweet above, it is the shareholders’ who will bear the brunt of it.
- Nairametrics
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