Lagos Govt Money 'Develops Wings' In Wema Bank

One of the old generation banks in Nigeria, Wema Bank, is presently in a mess and the reason is not far-fetched. Workers of the bank at Iponri, Lagos branch are still finding it difficult to understand how the sum of N6.5 million belonging to the Lagos State government suddenly developed wings and flew away from the account.

The money, according to we gathered, belongs to the Vehicle Inspection Office of the Lagos State Government.

Investigation shows that the money in question is the proceed of fines imposed by the VIO and payments for other services by the office between June and October 2013.

The money was discovered missing from VIO account after the organisation attempted to carry out account reconciliation and found that the account was not balancing, which forced the agency to immediately demand for its statement of account from Wema bank.

The missing money had since led to the arrest and subsequent sack of one Olakunle Olatunbosun, a teller with the bank.

Olatunbosun was employed by Wema Bank two years ago. He was transferred from the Head Office to the Iponri branch a year ago. Olatunbosun was handed over to the police at the Iponri Police Station by Wema Bank after the bank’s Public Relations Department set up an investigation panel.

The panel had invited Olatunbosun, the teller who was in charge of receiving fund deposits from and for the VIO. The bank had also invited one Lateef Goloba, a staff of VIO, who works in the account department of VIO.

According to a source, Goloba was the person in charge of fund deposit at the bank.

The panel worked on the theory that the disappearance of the N6.5 million could only have been the handiwork of either of two persons: the teller or the depositor.

The panel believes that once Goloba deposited the funds, Olatunbosun stamped the customers’ teller only. He did not stamp and file the control copy, which is supposed to be dropped into one of the bank’s boxes.

Once Olatunbosun stamps and signs the customer’s copy, he hands it over to Goloba.

Goloba takes the stamped teller to present to his office, signifying that he had deposited the money.

In October 2013, after the office of the VIO discovered the discrepancies in its account, it demanded for the statement of account and sure enough, the money fell short of what they had paid.

When Goloba was confronted, he immediately presented all the stamped and signed tellers with him, proving that he had been faithfully depositing all the funds as required.

The VIO petitioned Wema Bank, demanding that it should account for the missing N6.5 million.

It was due to this demand that Wema Bank set up the panel of investigation.

After the panel invited Goloba, he came with all the stamped, signed teller copies.

In the course of the investigation, it was discovered that all the control copies, which were supposed to be dropped into the bank’s boxes, were missing.

The panel declared that since the tellers with Goloba were stamped with the bank’s stamp and bore Olatunbosun’s signature, it would accept responsibility for the missing money.

The bank accepted to refund the office of the VIO.

The angry panel had accused the supervisor of the bank of condoning lapses and not being alive to his duties.

According to the panel, it was due to his not being alive to his responsibilities that made a customer who had lodge in such an amount of money to do so without the bank being able to trace or locate any of the control copies.

The panel suggested Olatunbosun should be sacked and handed over to the police.

The panel further suggested that none of the staff in the bank should be promoted for the next one year, no matter how hard they work.