Senate accuses CBN of frustrating investigation on Ways and Means

Credit: NAN

The Senate Ad hoc Committee investigating the N30 trillion Ways and Means facility granted to the federal government has accused the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of frustrating its efforts to uncover how the loans were utilised.

The N30 trillion Ways and Means facility was allegedly granted to the federal government between 2015 and 2023.

The Committee Chairman, Isah Jibrin, made the allegation on Tuesday after receiving an interim report from its consultants.

Jibrin, representing Kogi East, said the CBN has refused to provide the necessary documents to facilitate the investigation, thereby delaying the completion of the assignment.

Although the representative of the CBN, Malam Hamisu Abdullahi, Director of Banking Services, tried to say the apex bank provided all the documents requested, the chairman said the facts were different.

He said: “None of the documents was submitted to us” adding that “as it is, we will not allow you to attend the next meeting because you have been coming here for the same reason.

“The least person that will attend the next meeting should be a deputy governor of CBN”.

Speaking further, Jibrin said “What you are telling us is not the truth. We have not received the documents. I don’t want to deceive the public here”.

He said the aim of the assignment being entrusted to the committee by the Senate President for them to come up with a report within the shortest possible time was being frustrated by CBN’s action.

“The information we have here is not different from what we have heard all along.

“What we did was to hand over the documents to the consultants, and when the consultants made available to us this interim report, our intention was to hold onto the interim report on the final report.

“We have been compelled to make available this interim report to the general public.

“This is so that they know that we let them know where the problem is, and the problem is that the CBN has denied us consistently the documents that we need to complete this assignment”.

The ways and means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.

This way of financing government deficits usually results in macroeconomic instability, leading to inflation and high exchange rates because of the excess liquidity injected into the economy.

The CBN law limits advances under ways and means to five per cent of the previous year’s revenue.

A a way of remedying the situation, the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, declared in February that the bank would no longer grant ways and means advances to the government “until all outstanding debts are refunded.”