The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhede, has been accused of delaying the payment of outstanding subsidy claims to oil marketers because of the interests accruals on the loan facility this bank granted the oil marketers.
Aig-Imoukhede, it would be recalled, headed the Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments that indicted some of the oil marketers of massive fraud in the subsidy scam.
Specifically, Integrated Oil and Gas Limited, one of the Oil Marketing and Trading Companies (OM&Ts) indicted, alleged that the Aig-Imoukhuede-led committee was embarking on unwarranted and baseless fresh audit and recertification process to further delay the release of the subsidy refund owed the company.
In a letter to the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), the oil marketing company has demanded the immediate payment of its outstanding payments to enable it service its indebtedness to Access Bank, major financiers of its import transactions.
The letter written by Mr. Tayo Oyetibo (SAN) of Tayo Oyetobo & Co, solicitors of the oil marketing company, noted that its monthly interest accruals on the loan facility granted it by Access Bank in respect of the fuel importations runs into about N65-70 million and it has been unable to settle these interest accruals because it has been starved of the funds to do so as a result of the continued delay in paying the subsidy claims owed.
According to the company the delay in the payment of its subsidy claims has made it impossible to service the monthly interest charges, as its ability to repay the loan facility and service the monthly interest charges was dependent on the payment of the subsidy refunds owed it.
“The stark reality is that the longer our client remains without receiving its subsidy refunds, the better for Aig-Imokhuede and his Access Bank because they will continue to get more interest accruals on the loan facility,” the law firm stated in the letter.
Source: This Day