Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating N30trillion Ways and Means facility granted to the federal government between 2015 to 2023 has taken a swipe at the Central Bank of Nigeria for frustrating its efforts to uncover how the loans were spent.
Speaking after receiving an interim report from its consultants at meeting on Tuesday, Chairman of the committee, Senator Isah Jibrin ( Kogi East ) , said the Central Bank of Nigeria has refused to make relevant documents available to the consultants to enable them complete their assignment.
Although the representative of the CBN, Mallam Hamisu Abdullahi, Director of Banking Services tried vehemently to say the apex bank provided all the documents requested, the chairman said the facts are different.
“None of the documents was submitted to us” adding that “as it is, we will not allow you to attend the next meeting because you have been coming here for the same reason. The least person that will attend the next meeting should be a deputy governor of CBN.
“What you are telling us is not the truth. We have not received the documents. I don’t want to deceive the public here.”
He added that the aim of the assignment being entrusted to the committee by the Senate President for them to come up with a report within the shortest possible time was being frustrated by CBN action.
“The information we have here is not different from what we have heard all along. What we did was to hand over the documents to the consultants, and when the consultants made available to us this interim report, our intention was to hold onto the interim report on the final report,” he said.