All Bank Workers Must Start Declaring Their Assets

The Central Bank of Nigeria has ordered workers in all the 19 Deposit Money Banks in the country to declare their assets. Analysts say the move looks like the Federal Government is set to expand its ongoing anti-corruption crusade to the private sector, especially the banking industry.

The directive, which came in a letter through the Banking Supervision Department of the CBN to all the 19 commercial banks in the country about four weeks ago, gave bank officials only one week to complete the assets declaration process.

As of Thursday, investigation by Punch revealed that staff members of Ecobank Nigeria, First City Monument Bank Limited and Fidelity Bank Plc had complied with the directive.

Top officials of Ecobank, Fidelity Bank and FCMB, among others, confirmed the development. The workers said there was a directive from their management asking them to comply within one week.

Narrating his experience, a top official of a tier-1 banks, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said, “All our staff members, from the most junior to the most senior, were asked to declare their assets through a court affidavit. It was handled by the company’s lawyer.

“We were asked to declare all our assets, including developed and undeveloped parcels of land, properties, houses in Nigeria and outside Nigeria etc. We were asked to also declare everything, including power generators at home. We complied within one week.”

Sources say fear had descended on bank workers, especially top officials whose assets were beyond their means. It was learnt that the fear that the EFCC and ICPC might soon begin the examination of the details of the assets declaration forms vis-à-vis the properties some top banker own.

Some top bankers, who own huge assets, it was gathered, were panicky on how they would be able to justify the huge assets in their names should the EFCC and ICPC come knocking on their doors.