Senate to summon former CBN gov Emefiele over N30 trillion ‘Ways and Means’

The Senate has announced that it intends to call former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to testify on the N30 trillion "Ways and Means" advances that were made during President Muhammadu Buhari's watch.

This conclusion is the result of the present CBN leadership's insufficient justifications for the transactions.

Senator Jibrin Isah, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on "Ways and Means" from Kogi East, revealed this during a meeting at the National Assembly in Abuja with representatives of the CBN, including the Deputy Governor.

The Senate's action is a component of a larger investigation headed by Isah's ad hoc committee, which was formed to examine how the CBN's Ways and Means loans were obtained and used during Buhari's presidency.

The committee's job is to investigate the workings of the "Ways and Means" financial mechanism, which enables the CBN to offset shortfalls in the government budget.

The investigation also looks at the Anchor Borrowers' Programme, another financial project from the same era.

In the course of the meeting with CBN officials, Senator Isah disclosed that their first conclusions suggested that Emefiele had independently approved several transactions—a move the committee considers illegal.

He said, “The CBN made a presentation on the ‘Ways and Means’ and the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, and we were able to extract so much information from them and that will prepare us for the next line of discussion with them. We were able to make presentations on the Ways and means of the beneficiaries of those loans.

“But we had issues, issues of approval. We discovered that the CBN governor unilaterally gave approvals and we feel that is abnormal. We asked them for explanations in that regard, but they don’t have immediate explanations and I want to believe that they want to go back home, check their records and at the next meeting, they will be able to provide us with that explanation.

“We believe that every approval must be given by the committee of members, the governor and the deputy, that is the standard. Where the governor Aline gives an approval, that also is confusing and that, they will provide answers to us.”

He indicated that the committee would call Emefiele if the CBN's current leadership failed to offer the necessary clarifications.

He said, “Where it is absolutely necessary, we will not hesitate to invite the former CBN governor, Emefiele.”

Speaking on the discussion regarding the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, Senator Isah said, “With respect to Anchor Borrowers, the performance today on the average is impressive. About 70 per cent of the loans have been settled. The rest 30 per cent are loans given to low-income farmers and the risk there is that, those low-income farmers do not have what it takes to perform to expectations.

“They don’t have the necessary equipment, they don’t have the necessary know-how. So that is where we are going to have possible problems of loan default.

“And we are talking about N358 billion, spread all over the country. But we have advised them that those loans were processed through commercial banks, and the credit risk lies with the commercial banks. And the commercial banks should go after those borrowers to recover their monies. We told them that they should try and go into a round table discussion with those commercial banks that purportedly guaranteed those loans.

“Those loans were guaranteed by the commercial banks and those commercial banks are still in existence. The credit burden lies with the commercial banks and they know what to do because all the accounts of commercial banks are domiciled with the CBN. They may have to go to the extent of evoking the rules that we all know.”