Keystone Bank has been sued for alleged violation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy.
An Abuja-based lawyer, Johnmary Jideobi, who instituted the suit accused the bank of not remitting $17 million to the TSA.
The application with the suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1269/17 has the bank (Keystone), the Attorney General of the Federation and President of Federal Republic of Nigeria as defendants.
The plaintiff is seeking a mandatory order compelling the 1st defendant to promptly sweep into the treasury single account all the liquid of Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and particularly, the unremitted funds being about $17,000,000 and such other unremitted funds belonging to the Federal Government of Nigeria being unlawfully withheld from the federation account domiciled with the 1st defendant.
He prayed for an order declaring void the purported approval of the President (3rd defendant) for the exemption of Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Ltd’s account from the TSA and other approval(s) given to any other ministry, department and agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria same being unconstitutional and ultra vires the powers of the president.
Recall that the bank is among the seven banks the Federal Government alleged to have connived with some government agencies to illegally conceal $793.2 million meant to have been transferred to the TSA domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The government had, in the suit, alleged that $17 million out of the said amount was illegally hidden in Keystone Bank.
The fund in Keystone Bank and the six other banks were alleged to be revenues, donations, transfers, refunds, grants, taxes, fees, dues, tariffs etc accruable to the Federal Government from different ministries, departments, parastatal agencies.
But the Nigerian Government, on August 9, 2017, withdrew the suit.
Treasury Single Account is a system of government whereby all government revenues are paid into one account. The objective of TSA is to appropriately capture all government revenues with the aim of promoting accountability and transparency in public funds. The TSA policy was instituted by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, but implemented by President Buhari on assumption of office. Implementation of the TSA policy has resulted in the government having access to revenue running into trillions of Naira.
