EXPOSED! - MASSIVE MONEY LAUNDERING AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY!

EXPOSED! - MASSIVE MONEY LAUNDERING AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY!
Report by the Premium Times.
Published on 30/12/2015.
Nigeria's lawmaking body, the National Assembly, is entangled in horrid abuse of the nation's financial regulations, especially in its banking transactions, in the last six years, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritativelyreport. Investigation by this newspaper, spanning weeks, revealed that between 2009 and 2015, the management arm of the federal legislature led by the Clerk, Salisu Maikasuwa, his predecessor, Yemi Ogunyomi, and their representatives, extensively violated the Money Laundering Act (2004, 2011) in banking transactions leading to the withdrawals of about N42 billion of public funds.
Some members of the lawmaking arms of the legislature – Senate and the House of Representatives– were also involved in the violation of an Act they laboured for months to enact.
Documents exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES showed that the a huge chunk of the funds were withdrawn at different times in cash from Senate Accounts Numbers 321/212606/1/1/0 and 321/212606/1/1/3; House of RepresentativesAccount Numbers 321/212606/1/1/1 and 321/212606/1/1/2; National Assembly Management Account Number 321/212603/1/1/0; as well as the National Assembly Service Wide vote Account 326/253550/1/1/0 and 326/253525/1/1/0, all domiciled in the Guarantee Trust Bank.
The withdrawals were made without recourse to the Money Laundering Act, 2011 and 2004. Other huge withdrawals were also made from Account Number 1007323323 domiciled in the United Bank for Africa within the same period.
While a total of N26.69 billion involving 149 beneficiaries was drawn from the GTB accounts, N15.85 billion, involving 222 beneficiaries, was taken out of UBA. The cash withdrawals, at times higher than what is allowed by law, were so frequent that from 2013, UBA began to place transaction charges on them.
Between October 3, 2013 and August 19, 2015, the bank realized a total of N83.87m from the charges imposed on the transactions. But the GTB failed to apply charges as required by regulations, allowing the beneficiaries to make withdrawals against the law, records seen by PREMIUM TIMES show.
Insiders say the money paid as charges to the bank for excess cash withdrawals was never budgeted for by the National Assembly.
Part 1, Subsection 1 of the Money Laundering Act 2011 states that "No person or body corporate shall, except in a transaction through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding- (a) N5,000,000.00 or its equivalent, in the case of an individual; or (b)N10,000,000.00 or its equivalent in the case of a body corporate".
It also states, "Any Financial Institution or Designated-Financial Institution that fails to comply with the above provision by making the appropriate compliance report to the regulatory authorities commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of not less than N250,000:00 (Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) for an individual and not more than N1,000,000 (One Million Naira) for a body corporate, for each day that the contravention continues unabated."
The 2004 version of Act, repealed by the current one, states that "no person or corporation or organisation is allowed to make or accept cash payments of a sum in excess of N500,000.00 or its equivalent in the case of an individual, and N2,000,000.00 or its equivalent in the case of a corporation, unless such cash payment or acceptance is undertaken through a financial institution."
According to the documents in the possession of this newspaper, the excessive cash withdrawals spanned the tenures of three Clerks to the National Assembly — Nasiru Arab, Yemi Ogunyomi and the incumbent, Mr. Maikasuwa — with the largest withdrawals made during the reign of the last two.
Mr. Arab was clerk from 2005 to October 2009 while Mr. Ogunyomi occupied that office between October 2009 and April 2010 both as acting and substantive clerk. Mr. Maikasuwa succeeded Mr. Ogunyomi, first in acting capacity, and later as substantive clerk from August 2011.
Between 2009 and 2015, Messrs Arab, Ogunyomi and Maikasuwa, listed as permanent secretary/clerk in the withdrawal documents, withdrew a total of N6.37 billion from GTB and UBA.
While the sum of N4.78 billion was withdrawn by both men from GTB between September 9, 2009 and August 14, 2015, a total of N1.59 billion was withdrawn from the UBA between January 1, 2011 and August 8, 2015 by Mr. Maikasuwa.
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