Why Senate Threatens to Arrest Emefiele, Others Over N500 Billion Fund
- A Senate Committee has threatened to arrest the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, over the disbursement of N500 billion fund
- The committee said the refusal of Emefiele and five others are comptemtous, stating that the CBN boss has a case to answer
- The Senate Committee summoned Emefiele and five others, including bank executives over the alleged lopsided disbursement of the fund
The alleged unequal disbursement of N500 billion development fund across the six geo-political zones is pitting the Senate against the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele and others.
The upper legislative chamber’s Adhoc committee on the disbursement of N500 billion across the six geo-political zones by the Development Bank of Nigeria threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on Emefiele and heads of the concerned financial institutions for not appearing before it.
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Emefiele and five others could not make appearance
The Sani Musa led-committee summoned the Managing Director of Bank of Industry (BoI), Olukayode Pitan, MD of NIRSAL, Aliyu Abdulhameed and the DG of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), Olawale Fasanya.
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On Wednesday, November 30, 2022, they were invited by the Senate Committee to investigate the uneven distribution of the N500 billion development fund.
BusinessDay reporting stated that Sani Musa, the Chairman of the Committee, stated that five of the eight government agencies required for the investigation were asked to appear before the committee at the Wednesday hearing.
Musa said:
“Out of these five, only two came while the remaining three, the CBN, BOI and NIRSAL, were conspicuously absent without any letter from them explaining why.
“Assignment before this committee is a very important one, requiring cooperation and compliance from all those linked to issues at hand.”
According to him, the Ministers of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo and Sadiya Farouk of the Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development will appear before the committee on Thursday, December 1, 2022, to answer questions on their roles over the disbursement of the funds.
DBN boss denies lopsided disbursement
The Managing Director of the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Tony Okpanachi, rebutted lopsidedness in the disbursement of the fund.
Okpanachi said the condition set by the CBN was duly followed for the disbursement.
He said the criteria set by the Central Bank of Nigeria were used for fund disbursement.
Okpanachi said the bank’s lending has the same criteria set by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The DBN boss said for a business to qualify for the bank’s loan, it must have up to 250 people and a turnover of more than N1.1 billion, stating that the location of the registered MSMEs in the country is the reason for the disbursement of the loan.
Lagos alone has 25 per cent, South West 23 per cent, South-South, 18 per cent, North Central 10 per cent, North West 9 per cent and North East 2 per cent, Okpanachi told the Senate Committee.
“For DBN, it’s a continuous process to get more businesses on board,” he stressed.
Emefiele States why naira is falling, says National Card to commence January
Legit.ng reported that the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has blamed the number of Nigerian students seeking foreign education for the depletion of the foreign reserves.
Nairametrics reports say the official foreign exchange received from crude oil sales into Nigeria’s reserves has depleted steadily from over $3 billion monthly in 2014 to zero dollars in 2022, according to Emefiele.
He stated this at the 57th annual bankers’ dinner organised by the Chattered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos on Saturday, November 26, 2022.
Source: Legit.ng
