The federal government has denied any directives to civil servants on moving their salary account from Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) to another financial institution.
On Friday, TheCable came across a viral WhatsApp message that reads: “Please let’s all take note, seems GTB now has serious problems and may be shut down any moment from now. Anyone that has money in the bank should do the needful.”
The message had emanated from a media report with the headline ‘FG gives civil servants two weeks ultimum to move their salary account from GTB to another bank’.
TheCable observed that the report has also been deleted by the media organisation.
In a brief chat with TheCable, Cornelius Onuoha, GTB spokesperson, said the report is “absolutely false”.
“It is a totally false story. The federal government has also commented about it. These same set of people are looking for ways to blackmail the bank since it declared a N1 trillion profit,” Onouha said.
Also, in a statement dated November 4, Bawa Mokwa, director of press and public relations, office of the accountant general of the federation, debunked the report.
According to Mokwa, no instruction has been issued to federal workers to switch the financial institutions linked to their Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System salary accounts.
The OAGF added that any request to change salary accounts remains a personal decision for each worker and that the IPPIS office has not issued any general order to this effect, as there is no justification for such a directive.
“The OAGF explained that whenever there is an application for change of salary account, such is always a personal decision of the worker concerned. The IPPIS Office has not issued any general directive to this effect as there was no reason to do so,” Mokwa said.
“The OAGF tasked financial institutions to implement necessary strategies to boost customers’ confidence and guarantee efficient fulfillment of their obligations to persons whose salaries are domiciled in such financial institutions and Nigerians in general.
“The OAGF noted that there are agencies that are statutorily mandated to determine the health as well as viability of financial institutions and expressed optimism that those agencies are up to their tasks.”
The OAGF also advised workers that may have genuine reasons to change their salary accounts on the IPPIS platform to follow the official procedures.
