A bill seeking to raise punishment for insider fraud by bank employees to a 20-year jail term, on Wednesday passed second reading, according to the House of Representatives of Nigeria.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that this development is coming just 24 hours after the Nigerian Senate passed a bill seeking to stop landlords in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from demanding advance payment of one-year rent from their tenants, for second reading.
The legislation is titled, ‘A bill for an Act to Regulate the mode of Payment of Rent on Residential Apartments, Office Spaces, etc, in the FCT and for Other Matters Connected Therewith’ sponsored by Senator Smart Adeyemi (All Progressives Congress, APC/Kogi-West), the bill was aimed at ending the practice whereby landlords demand a yearly advance payment of rents from their tenants.
Adeyemi said the bill seeks to replace the current annual advance rent payment with monthly payments in arrears. This, according to him, is aimed at making life meaningful for workers who are finding it difficult to pay their house rents.
This newspaper recalls that last November, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared that most frauds in the banking sector were perpetrated by insider Information, Communication Technology (ICT) employees.
The commission said most banking sector fraud handled by it showed that bank employees aided the acts.
This latest extension in jail term is expected to curb the crime of bank fraud in Nigeria.
