Senate Demands N30bn Ways and Means Details from CBN

Okays Gbenga Alade as MD of AMCON, three other executive directors Passes N1.282tn FCT 2024 budget Extends 2023 supplementary appropriation Act implementation to June

The Senate ad hoc Committee probing the N30 trillion Ways and Means loans advances to the federal government and the Anchor Borrowers' Programme (ABP) had insisted that the loans must be recovered in full.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Isah Jibrin (Kogi East), stated this after a meeting of the Committee with officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the National Assembly complex yesterday.

The CBN team, led by Bala Bello, Deputy Governor, Corporate Services made their presentations on Ways and Means and Anchor Borrowers.

Jibrin, told journalists that the committee was able to extract useful information from them, which would guide their next level of discussion.

He said the committee had issues with approvals in areas where it was discovered that the CBN governor, “unilaterally gave approvals,” which he said was abnormal to the committee.

The committee could not get immediate explanation for that and therefore gave the CBN 24 hours to provide the necessary explanation.

He said, “We believe that every approval must be given by the Committee of Governors (COG), the governor and his deputies. That is the standard rule.

"Where the governor alone unilaterally gives approval that calls for questioning. I think they will provide answers for us very soon.

"However, the Anchor Borrowers' amounting to N1.1 trillion has an impressive repayment rate of up to 70 per cent performance and the rest 30 per cent of N358 billion are loans given low income farmers with very high risk.”

Jibrin said the risk there was that those low income farmers don't have what it takes to perform to expectation in terms of, “equipment and technical know how to manage those farms effectively.

He said, "That is where we are going to having possible problems of loan default of about N358 billion.”

The committee advised that, to the extent that the loans were processed through the commercial banks, the credit risks lie with the commercial banks.

He added that the commercial banks should in turn go after the borrowers to recover their monies.

Jibrin said, “We have advised them that they should try into round table discussion with those commercial banks that purportedly guaranteed those loans.

"To the extent that those loans have been guaranteed and those commercial banks are still in existence, the credit risks lie with the commercial banks and they know what to do.”

The Senate also yesterday, confirmed the nomination of Gbenga Alade for appointment as the managing director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

The Senate also confirmed the nomination of Adeshola Lamidi, Lucky Adaghe and Dr. Aminu Murktar Dan'amu for appointment as executive directors in AMCON.

The resolution of the Red Chamber followed its adoption of the recommendations of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other financial institutions that screened the nominees.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Adetokunbo Abiru, presented the report.

President Bola Tinubu had earlier forwarded the nominees to the Senate and urged them to consider and confirm them for appointment.

The Senate also yesterday, passed the sum of N1.282 trillion FCT 2024 budget. The passage of the budget followed the adoption and approval of the recommendations in the harmonised report of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on FCT on the 2024 FCT statutory Appropriation Bill at plenary.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT, Senator Ibrahim Bomoi, presented the report.

Of the amount, the sum of N140,915,003,856.00 was for personnel cost while N373,027,373,668.00 was for overhead cost.

The balance sum of N768,328,232,759.00 was for capital projects for the FCT financial year commencing from 1st of January to December 31.

Also yesterday, the Senate approved the extension of the implementation of the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Act from 31st March 2024 to June 30th.

The amendment followed a bill by the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele.

Additionally, the Senate yesterday, passed for second reading, the amendment to the Extradition Act, 2004.

In the proposed law, Section 2 (1) and Section 7(4) of the Act are to be amended, according to Opeyemi, in his lead debate on the floor of the legislature in Abuja.

He explained that in Section 2, the, “Act is amended to allow Nigeria to accede to extradition requests from countries with which Nigeria has signed an extradition treaty - as opposed to only Commonwealth countries, as is the case today.

“The present position of the Act applies only to countries within the Commonwealth and any other country with whom Nigeria establishes an extradition treaty or arrangement.”

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