By David Onuoja, Abuja
The Senate Chairman Adhoc Probing Committee on Ways and Means, Senator Jibrin Isah, also known as Echocho, ( APC Kogi East ) has during the hearing of the last administration’s dealing with the approval of Ways and Means presented to the 9th National Assembly by former President Muhammad Buhari calls for questioning.
He stated this while fielding questions from journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, saying, the Senate will get to the root of the whole thing.
The probing chairman said, the Senate wants to know the beneficiaries and how the approval was given for the money which is why a committee headed by him was set up to dig to the root of the matter.
During an interface with the officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Wednesday, Senator Isah has directed the apex bank to debit commercial banks used for disbursement of the loan from source.
Senator Echocho’s directive was given after unsatisfactory explanations offered by CBN officials led by Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Bala Bello, on poor recovery of the loan.
According to him, “the approval of this money has an issue, issue of approvals. There are areas where we discovered that the Central Bank Governor gave the approval and we feel, that is abnormal and we ask them for more explanations in that regard which they must answer.
“On our own as Senate, we believed that every approval, must be given by the committee of ventures, that is the Governor and the executive. That is the standard way for example but where the governor alone gave the approval, that Means they have to come back here to provide answers to us very soon.
“They defaulted and why do they default. You can’t restructure the loan forever. You can go after the collateral, you must up your games, we need to recover these monies. We can’t continue to restructure forever.
“We are talking about N358billion that hasn’t been repaid and at the risk of default.
“For those that have defaulted, I suggest that we put a peg on the interest. Our focus should be on the principal. On that, those loans must have been guaranteed by the banks. I want to believe that those banks must have covered their backs through collateral.
“I am sure no bank will grant loans without collateral. They must open up to you. We have the power to go through the whole hog by debiting them at source. We can do that, let them go to Court”, he said .
The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria earlier in his explanations to the committee said, the yet to be recovered loans are being tackled expressed regrets over the lack of supervision by the immediate past management of the CBN under its erstwhile Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
He however, assured the lawmakers that the new management was doing everything possible to recovers the outstanding loans.
“On our own part, I want to tell you that the new management of CBN have given us a mandate to get the money back. We are under responsibility to recover these money, they belong to tax payers.
“It saddens my heart to answer questions on things we don’t know. But we inherit both assets and liability. Things could have been done better”, he said.
The N30trillion Ways and Means, Senator Jibrin Isah who doubles as Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs expressed disappointment saying, CBN acted in breach of the law by its immediate past Governor, Godwin Emefiele whom he noted unilaterally approved loans without recourse to the statutory approving authority, the Committee of Governors.
The N1.079trillion given as loans to farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, was part of the money spent from the N22.7trillion given as overdraft to President Buhari led government by CBN from 2015 to 2023, which later increased to N30trillion on account of accrued interests.
Due to the poor handling of this recovery loans, particularly the N1.079trilliion given to farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, Senator Jibrin Isah has asked CBN to do everything possible to recover the monies.