The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), yesterday, disclosed that it had no documents backing the N6.7 trillion fuel subsidy payment claim of the Federal Government.
Its Governor, Godwin Emefiele, made the disclosure during hearing of the House of Representatives special ad hoc committee on petroleum products subsidy regime in Nigeria from 2017 to 2021.
At the commencement of the investigative hearing, the CBN governor told the lawmakers that he could only answer questions that are related to technical matters concerning subsidy payments
“I will be able to provide answers here. But if they are outside the technical aspects of the subsidy transactions, then I will not be able to respond,” he said.
Emeifele, who was represented by the apex bank’s Deputy Director, Banking Services, Hussein Kagara, told the lawmakers that the documents of subsidy payments were too voluminous and as such, the regulator could not be able to print them out.
His explanation, however, did not go down well with the committee, as a lawmaker, Mark Gbilah (NNPP Benue), said N6.7 trillion in less than a year is being expended on subsidy, stating the CBN helmsman should personally appear to address the issue in company of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
The committee, therefore, subpoenaed to appear on August 18 for further hearing.
Similarly, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately end the “inefficiency and endemic corruption” allegedly plaguing the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited (formerly known as Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) for the most populous black nation to meet its Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota in the near future.
The group, in a statement issued by its Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, yesterday, said to continue to see the monetary policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as responsible for continuing crash of the naira against the dollar amounts to taking the blame game of appointees in the Buhari administration too far.
Insisting that, “the CBN cannot be blamed when the country is not meeting its OPEC production quota as an economy that mainly depends on crude oil revenues.”
The group was reacting to remarks credited to Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, where he confirmed that Nigeria was not meeting its OPEC production quota due to oil theft.