The Senate will on Wednesday (today) set up an adhoc committee to probe how the N30tn Ways and Means loans of the Central Bank of Nigeria was obtained and spent by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to The PUNCH, the ad hoc committee will also investigate what the N30tn overdraft was spent on by the immediate past government, noting that the details of the spending were deliberately not made available to the National Assembly.
The ad-hoc committee which will be constituted on Wednesday (today) will also probe the N10tn expended on the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, the $2.4bn forex transaction out of the $7bn obligation made for that purpose as well as other intervention programmes.
Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the government’s budget shortfalls.
The senate stated that the reckless spending of the overdraft collected from the CBN under Godwin Emefiele largely accounted for the food and security crises the country was currently facing.
The development came as biting food crisis, rising inflation, naira depreciation and worsening insecurity continue to take tolls on Nigerians.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said as recommended by the committee and supported by most of the Senators, a thorough probe must be carried out on the N22.7tn Ways and Means approved in May 2023 by the 9th Senate which later increased to N30trn, with the passage of the N7.2trn accrued interest forwarded to the senate for passage last December.
Akpabio said, “The food and security crises confronting the nation now are traceable to the way and manner the said Ways and Means were given collected and spent. Details of such spending must be submitted for required scrutiny and possible remedies because what Nigerians want is food on their table which must be given.”
He added, “Other recommendations made by the committee on the need for a thorough investigation of the N10trillion Anchor borrowers programme, and other intervention programmes running into billions of dollars must be investigated.
“But as rightly recommended by the joint committee, security agencies should, as a matter of national urgency, combat all forms of insecurity across the country for farmers to access their farms for required food production highly needed in the country now.”
