By Fatima Saka
The Nigeria Senator on Tuesdays has affirmed to go after predecessor of Mr Cardoso Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) if failed to provide answers to ways and Means, anchor borrowers scheme monies.
The chairman Ad-hoc Committee on ways and Means investigation, Senator Jibrin Isah, said the CBN Governor should be able to stands in for Godwin Emefiele the former CBN Governor and answer all questions on the issues, because it is presume that he has been briefed by the former Governor, but if the present cbn governor failed to provide answers, the will no hesitate of invite for Emefiele questioning.
During the interactive session with the newsmen, the chairman on ways and means investigation said that the CBN representatives were here, headed deputy governor corporate services of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He added that after their presentations both on the ways and means, and on the anchor borrower’s scheme, the committee was able to extract so much information from the CBN representatives.
“And that will now guide our next level of discussion with them at the next meeting.
Basically, they were able to make a decision for us on the ways and means to the beneficiaries of those loans. But we had issues, issues of approvals. There are areas that we discovered that the central bank governor did not really give approval, and we feel that that is abnormal.
“We’ve asked them for explanations in that regard. They don’t have an immediate explanation, and we also believe that they want to go back home and check their records, and at the next meeting,
“They may be able to provide us with the explanation. Because we believe that every approval must be given. Because that is the standard rule. Where, for example, the governor alone gave an approval, that calls for questioning. And I think they will provide an answer to us very soon.
”Well, with respect to Anchor Borrower’s Scheme, the performance to date, on the average, is impressive, about 70% of the loans are performing. The rest, 30%, are loans given to relatively low-income farmers.
“And the risk there is that those low-income farmers, maybe in terms of their performance, they don’t have what it takes to perform to expectations. They may not have the necessary equipment. They may not even have the necessary to know how to manage those farms effectively. So that is where we are going to have possible problems of loan default.
“And we are talking of about 358 billion, spread all over the country loans were processed through commercial banks, the credit risk lies with the commercial banks and the commercial banks in turn should go after those borrowers to recover their monies.
“We’ve told them that they should try and go into a roundtable discussion with those commercial banks that supposedly guaranteed those doors to the other that those loans were guaranteed have been guaranteed by the commercial banks and those commercial banks are domiciled with the central bank of Nigeria they may have to go to the extra mile, to the extent of invoking the rules that we all know.
In response, Mr. Bala M. Bello Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate said It saddened his heart to provide answers to the difficult questions asked of his unawares about DMT.
He however Alassures the committee to further lead the team whenever they are called upon to ensure that the monies for ways and means, anchor borrowers are recovered.
It was recalled that barely week after the Senate President Inaugurated Ad-hoc Committee to Investigate N30trn of ways and means under the Buhari’s administration.
