CAC Liquidates 30 Wonder Banks, As Depositors May Lose N106bn

CAC Liquidates 30 Wonder Banks, as Depositors May Lose N106bn

Crusoe Osagie

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has announced that it has filed for the liquidation of 30 out of the 400 Wonder Banks in which Nigerians invested over N106 billion, which may never be recovered.

The Registrar General of the CAC, Alhaji Bello Mahmud, last weekend in Abuja stated that at the end of the collation exercise, claims totaling over N106 billion were submitted against about 400 Wonder Banks.

He said the CAC has since been directed by the overseeing committee on the issue, made up of the EFCC, CBN, NDIC, SEC, SFU AND CAC, to file winding up petitions at the Federal High Court in respect of 30 out of the 400 wonder banks that accounted for 97 per cent of the total claims.

“The courts have already appointed liquidators for 28 out of the 30 wonder banks being wound up,” Mahmud noted.

He said the recurring cases of wonder banks in the country had become a major source of concern to the federal government and its regulatory agencies, giving rise to the setting up of an inter agency committee.

The committee had invited all depositors of these Wonder Banks to submit claims through the CAC offices nationwide for the purpose of ascertaining the extent of their exposure. The CAC chief executive also disclosed the commission’s collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Communications Technology towards on-boarding the commission on the government service portal.

This, he said, would afford the agency’s customers the opportunity to carry out their transactions online and pay for CAC’s services electronically through the web on a platform to be provided by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System plc (NIBSS).

“The new system is expected to be deployed in phases with the first phase being expected to commence before the end of 2013,” Mahmud said. He also noted that having obtained the NIS ISO 9001:2008 and a new certification in 2012 to last for a period of three years, the CAC has become the only government agency to attain the feat.

“In 2006, the CAC subjected its processes, procedures and systems to the scrutiny of the International Standards Organisation through the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). This culminated in the certification of the commission in 2007 for quality management systems based on ISO 9001:2000 standards.

“Following the introduction of the NIS 9001:2008 standards the CAC obtained new certification in the year 2010 for a period of three years. The CAC went through another revalidation Audit in 2013 and was issued another certificate for a period of three years with effect from October 3, 2013,” he explained.