Janet Samuel, Abuja
The Senate’s investigation into the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) disbursement of N30 trillion in Ways and Means facilities to the Federal Government between 2014 and 2023 gained momentum last week, as lawmakers dug deeper into the controversial transactions.
The Senate granted a two-month extension to the Ad-hoc committee tasked with investigating the matter, effectively reopening the window for a more intense probe last Thursday, allowing the committee to further scrutinize the issues at hand.
The Chairman of the Ad – hoc committee set up in March this year , Senator Jibrin Isah- Echocho representing Kogi East Senatorial District, had in seeking for more time , informed the Senate that required vital information for the probe exercise, were still being expected from some of the relevant agencies involved in the spending of the monetary facilities.
Senator Isah-Echocho, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs and Excise Duties, revealed in a phone conversation with journalists in Abuja on Saturday that the two-month extension granted by the Senate last Thursday will enable the committee to escalate its investigation into the matter, intensifying the probe and scrutinizing the details more thoroughly.
” Most of the relevant agencies have been contacted and their documents being thoroughly scrutinized as regards spending of the disbursement gotten from the ways and means .
” Being a very sensitive national assignment , the committee is carrying out very thorough investigation devoid of rushing into conclusion .
” More pressures would now be mounted on few of the agencies that have not adequately responded to vital information seeking requests forwarded to them , failure of which would lead to summoning of heads of such agencies .
” The new time frame given for the investigation by the Senate , will surely make the committee , come up with thoroughly investigative report in September this year on how the N30trillion Ways and Means were disbursed within the period under review , for what purposes and expended “, he said .
Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) , finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.
This way of financing government deficits usually results in macroeconomic instability, leading to inflation and high exchange rates because of the excess liquidity injected into the economy.
The CBN law limits advances under ways and means to 5 percent of the previous year’s revenue, but this has been mostly breached over the years.
As a way of remedying the situation, the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, declared in February this year , that the bank would no longer grant ways and means advances to the government until all outstanding debts are refunded.
