The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has placed three serving governors under watch over their moves to launder cash through table payment of salaries to workers.
This was made known by the Chairman of the anti-grafft agency, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who refused to uncover the identities of the governors.
He, however, revealed that two of the governors are from the Northern part of the nation, while the third one is from the South.
Bawa stated that plans to pay their state workers’ salaries through physical cash have been exposed to the agency.
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He said, “Let me tell you something; the Intel that I have yesterday and I would want you to take this thing very seriously. Already, some state governors have some of this cash stashed in various houses and the rest are now trying to pay salaries in cash in their state.”
Speaking further, Bawa said the commission is closely monitoring the concerned suspects.
He said, “I don’t know how they want to achieve that but we have to stop them from doing that. Well, we are working, they have not paid the salaries in cash yet but it is a very serious thing,” he said, noting that the act was against section 2 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act.
“The law is very clear regarding cash transactions. Anybody that is to consummate any cash transaction as an individual, if it is not through a financial institution, must not be above N5m and if it is above that it is criminal for you to engage in such transaction. And for corporate entities, it is N10m.
“Yes, I agree the salaries are not up to that but why are you all of a sudden, and all along you have been paying people salaries through their bank accounts and now you want to pay them in cash, what are you trying to do? They will come under a lot of guises, they are trying to do verification of officers, that is what we have gotten,” Bawa said.
Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria had indicated readiness to redesign the N200, N500 and N1000 bank notes.