President Goodluck Jonathan has queried the Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, over some items in the apex’s bank’s
2012 audit report.
A confirmation of the query was made by the Special Adviser to the President on Media
and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, when he was contacted by one of our
correspondents for a reaction to a publication (not by The PUNCH) on Tuesday
over the report.
Although Abati was not specific in his response, he said he
was aware that “some issues” came up and the CBN governor was asked to
offer further explanations on them.
Abati, who added that
the CBN governor had since made clarifications, did not say whether the President was satisfied
with them or not.
“What I know is that some issues came up and he (the CBN
governor) was asked to explain and he has since done so,” he said on the telephone.
An online news medium, PointblankNews.com, had in
the said publication claimed that Sanusi was queried by Jonathan over some alleged infractions
discovered in the bank’s 2012 audited
account.
According to the publication, the query covered 22 issues bordering on
infractions in the bank.
It also alleged that
the CBN governor made some financial
donations under the special access item in the CBN account.
The report by the news portal said that the query was sent
to the CBN governor on May 6, while a response was expected back on May 8.
The CBN governor was, however, reported by the portal to have submitted his
reply to the President on May 21.
Other issues raised
in the query, according to the online
publication, include the write-off of
about N3.5bn CBN staff housing loan.
It also touched other issues such as refusal of the apex
bank to consolidate its accounts, the trillion naira debt owed by the Asset
Management Company, and the
non-disclosure of the total liabilities through the bond floated by the
company.
Sanusi was also asked to explain the discrepancies noted in
the 2012 account regarding the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company,
a subsidiary of the CBN.
The CBN reacted swiftly, saying the publication was the
handiwork of mischief makers as it did not reflect the reality on the ground.
In a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in
Abuja, the Director, Corporate
Communications Department of the CBN, Mr Ugochukwu Okoroafor, said that contrary to the report, the bank’s account was not queried by
the President.
He added that the CBN
was the only institution among the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of
government that was recently given an award by the National Assembly Committee
on Finance for presenting its account in a transparent manner.
For instance, he said
the committee specifically singled out the bank for contributing over 75 per cent of
MDA’s remittances to government coffers.
He said, “I have read that report and those things written
there are not true. I am not aware that the President queried the CBN governor
over that report. I am not aware of that.
“The 2012 report has been out for some time now and I can
say that the CBN is the only
institution that in its accounts has
always come out without any problem.
“In fact, even the
finance committee commended us. We are the only institution that has shown
consistency in terms of bringing out
our reports on time and in terms of remittances.
“We have never failed in the history of the CBN. The finance
committee gave us an award and this was celebrated.
“They gave us with the Nigerian Television Authority and
they said we made over 75 per cent of the contributions by MDAs to their surplus and this happened just a few
months ago.
“So the people are just being mischievious and we won’t
succumb to any blackmail.”
Sanusi had last week while responding to questions on the
controversy surrounding the approval of the CBN’s financial statement by the
Financial Reporting Council, said the board of the bank, and not the FRC, approved the
report .
He had said, “On our accounts, the FRC does not approve our
accounts. The board of the Central Bank had approved our accounts.
“The FRC is there to set accounting standards and to make
sure they are improved on to meet international best practices.
“We published accounts and the FRC has comments on those
accounts; they will take those comments and we will take on board whatever
because they are the regulator as far as preparing financial statements is
concerned and just like banks respect our own regulatory arena, we respect the
FRC in its own regulatory arena.
“So there is no question at all about the non-approval, and
I am not even aware of any issues that have been raised and I will like to put
an end to all of that speculation.
“There is nothing like the FRC not approving our account.
There is nothing like a query on our account.”
No comments:
Post a Comment