By ABDULWAHAB ABDULAH & ONOZURE DANIA
LAGOS—An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, witness, Mr. Davis Nkpe, yesterday, told an Ikeja High Court, Lagos, that there were conditions precedent for a customer to benefit from the Bank PHB (now Keystone Bank) granted deferral policy for credit.
Testifying at the on-going trial of former managing director of the bank, Mr. Francis Atuche, his wife, Elizabeth, and a former director of the bank, Mr. Ugo Anyanwu, over alleged financial impropriety, the witness said a customer was expected to submit a duly- completed credit availment form to enjoy credit availment policy.
The witness, led in evidence by EFCC's counsel, Mr. Kemi Pinheiro, SAN, presented some documents, showing transactions regarding facilities received by some companies from the bank, which were admitted as exhibits.
The documents admitted included a certified true copy of a letter of incorporation of a company, Petrosam Oil and Gas; a letter from Bank PHB dated October 28, 2009 stating that they have no record for the opening of some accounts for certain companies and an internal memo of Bank PHB dated February 15, 2007 entitled, Approval limit for credit availment.
He said: "In the course of our investigations, we discovered that certain funds were disbursed to three companies, but found that no account exists for these companies as the account opening packages were not available after diligent search."
Some new companies that were alleged to have benefited from Bank PHB shares with the bank's fund were also mentioned.
He told the court that all the transactions were carried out by a Bank PHB staff, Obi Nwapa, on the instructions of Anyanwu, who was the Chief Financial Officer in the bank at the time.
He added that during their investigations,they confronted Anyanwu with the written instructions on fund transfer and he wrote a statement, stating that funds were moved out of the bank and used to buy shares while acting on instructions from his boss, but there was no document tendered to support his claim that he was acting on Atuche's instructions as the beneficial owner of the alleged shares.
Vanguard Nigeria