The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has learnt that Equity Bank was among a number of 17 other banks that handled money allegedly stolen in the NYS saga.
According to PAC, there are possibilities that the fresh inclusion of these banks in the saga could lead to the discovery more amounts of money stolen from the Youth Service.
“We received this information yesterday (Monday) and we are still collating it. All we can say for sure is that it is running into several billions and off our fingertips, it is definitely more than the figures that you’ve heard in this room,” said PAC chairman Nicolas Gumbo.
Apart from Equity Bank, the other banks mentioned are African Banking Corporation, Bank of Africa, Bank of Baroda, CFC Stanbic, Chase, Cooperative, Consolidated, Diamond Trust Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity, First Community, Giro, Gulf African, Housing Finance, I&M, Paramount, Transnational, Commercial Bank of Africa,
The committee has since decided to request the Ministry of Devolution and Planning to provide a record of all monies paid out of NYS from 2013.
“In the period under review, the money that left the NYS into these companies is more. It is possible, yes, that more money was lost than we already know. We want to know who else apart from what is in the public domain did business with NYS in this period,” added Gumbo.