In a bid to scrutinise the Ways and Means loan of the Nigerian government under President Buhari’s administration, the ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria) has approved the legislative arm to investigate the activities of the Central Bank on the disbursement and usage of the thirty million naira loan. The ICAN president noted that the aim was for the past mistake to serve as a blueprint for the CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso.
According to Innocent Iweka Okwuosa, “Our expectation is that with the new administration, borrowing will be a thing of the past. However, I will advise the CBN to continue to extend Ways and Means to the government, but the CBN itself has stated that it will not continue to extend Ways and Means to the government. In fact, this is a good policy from our perspective. So, if CBN should stick to not increasing the Ways and Means that it gives to the government, that’s a policy that we support.
“I think it is a Fiscal Responsibility Committee that placed a limit on what the Ways and Means percentage would be. It’s something around five percent. When CBN exceeded this, people kept quiet. They should have spoken up so that CBN does not continue to exceed this limit. Now, it is not five per cent, we are talking about N30tn, that’s huge. I understand it’s been converted into bond. But one good thing we support is the fact that the Senate has instituted an inquiry into those Ways and Means. I would guess that the investigation would lead to more revelation and would be a lesson which the present CBN would learn from and would not go into the mistake of the previous CBN.”
Furthermore, he established the importance of decreasing Ways and Means to the government and promoting exports in Africa, and leveraging the AU’s FTAs (Free Trade Agreements). “They could go to the capital market and tie them to projects because each time you have a government deficit, it must be as a result of not having funds to back a project. So, if we want to raise funds for such a project, we (can) do that in the capital market and tie it specifically to the project that we couldn’t provide funding for in the budget. I think that’s the way CBN should go,” he stated.
By Chidimma NWAFOR
