Adamawa House of Assembly has summoned the managements of United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Zenith Bank, to appear before it on Tuesday and explain their refusal to release salary of civil servants.
The development followed complaints Monday on the floor of the House by the Commissioner for Local Government, Alhaji Mohammed Barkindo, and that of Finance, Alhaji Mahmud Sali.
The commissioners alleged that the banks withheld the subventions of the state and local governments for April and May, while refusing to pay workers salaries as directed by the state government.
Barkindo said his ministry, as usual, wrote to UBA to pay the salaries of local government staff after the allocations from the federation account, but the bank refused.
“The bank said their refusal was based on orders from above; I do not know what they meant; we are not owing the bank money as the N500 million loan collected by local government councils had been paid,” Barkindo said.
Also speaking with regards salary of workers, the Commissioner of Finance, Mahmud Sali, said letter of authority signed by him, Accountant General and Gov. Muhammadu Bindow, was rejected by the bank.
Sali said he made three attempts to give the bank the letter but it refused to collect same, adding that the state had about N3 billion in it account with the bank.
Deliberating on the matter, the Deputy Speaker of the House, Mr Lusambani Dilli (APC-Demsa), said the attitude of the banks to the out-going administration, was unfortunate.
He suggested that the management of the two banks be summon to appear before the House by 10 am on Tuesday to explain their actions.
The plenary, presided by the Speaker, Alhaji Kabiru Mijinyawa, unanimously passed a motion summoning the management of the bank to appear on Tuesday.
