Senate grills CBN officials on N30tn loan controversy

The Senate has announced its intention to interrogate certain Central Bank of Nigeria officials regarding the acquisition and utilization of the N30tn Ways and Means loan by the Federal Government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Chairman of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee, Senator Isah Jibrin, disclosed in an exclusive interview with The PUNCH that the panel would initiate the investigation this week.

On Tuesday, the Senate designated Jibrin as the chair of the panel tasked with investigating the N30tn Ways and Means loan disbursed by the former CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to the Buhari administration.

‘Ways and Means’ represents an overdraft obtained directly from the central bank to finance budget shortfalls or address national emergencies. Typically, this requires approval from the executive branch and subsequent ratification by the parliament.

Last Tuesday, the Senate decided to investigate the N30tn facility, citing concerns that the purported imprudent utilization of the overdraft acquired from the CBN played a significant role in the current food and security crises plaguing the country.

The Senate subsequently resolved to establish an Ad-hoc committee to scrutinize the expenditure of the fund, highlighting that the specifics of its utilization were intentionally withheld from the National Assembly.

The panel’s chairman, Echocho, noted that the committee has initiated preliminary investigations based on the documents currently in its possession.

He said, “We are looking at next week for the investigation at the committee level, but as chairman, I am not waiting for that. I have some documents; I want to write to CBN to provide me with information on some areas.

“Because Ways and means cover very large latitude, so based on the information that I have now, I am going to write to seek clarifications on certain issues thereafter the committee will meet.

He further mentioned that the Ways and Means loan issue surfaced in December 2022, close to the conclusion of the ninth Senate.

Senator added, “I have some documents and I want to leverage on those documents by going through them to ask questions from the CBN to seek further clarifications. Thereafter, we will now invite CBN officials who were engaged under Emefiele, although he is no longer there.

“They were a part of it, they have to come and explain to us. The terms of reference are very simple.

“These monies were given out. We want to know the agencies that benefited from those monies.

“We also want to know the individual Nigerians who benefited. We want to know the terms and conditions. The CBN is not Father Christmas. They are loans; we want to know the beneficiaries of those loans.

“What are the terms and conditions of those loans? What are the collaterals collected to fall back on when there is a default? Have they been repaid? What are the repayment schedules? In case of default do we have collateral? So those are the issues, we are not witch-hunting anybody.”

He further explained, “This country belongs to all of us, we want to know what actually transpired because we are where we are today because of those reckless exercises.

“I will call it reckless because when you are taking a decision as an economist because I want to believe, we have economists there when you take a particular decision, you should be able to ascertain the possible impact of that decision on the larger community.

“You either withdraw or you modify, that is why I am happy that the Monetary Policy Committee has been composed. You know the composition of the MPC is crucial because that is where policy measures are taken. You need to look at it, if this variable is this, and the state of the economy is XYZ, what do you do?

“How do you tinker with some of those variables so that the larger society will improve? That is why we want to unravel all that happened not to witch-hunt anybody but to know the extent to which Ways and means advances have been performed and then other decisions can be taken thereafter.”

It is unclear if the committee will also eventually summon Emefiele as the probe deepens.