Reps threaten Finance Minister, CBN gov, DMO boss over N600bn bail-out fund

The House of Representatives yesterday threatened the Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Director-General, Debt Management Office, DM0, Abraham Nwankwo and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Dr Godwin Emefiele, for deliberately refusing to give out information on how the N600 billion bail-out fund was disbursed.


The House, through its adhoc committee on the disbursement and usage of the bailout fund, also lampooned the director-general of Debt Management Office ,DMO, for treating the issue with levity. Chairman of the committee, Ibrahim Sadiq, described the refusal of the trio to appear before his investigative committee as an affront on the institution of the National Assembly, since it was empowered by sections 88,89 of the 1999 constitution as amended, to probe the usage of monies disbursed from the federation account.

Sadiq threatened to apply the full weight of the law on the three officials, arguing that officials of the aforementioned outfits who appeared before the committee on behalf of their bosses lacked the competence to handle the sensitive issue at stake.

He further claimed that information contained in the documents earlier made available to the committee by officials of the DMO, CBN, and the Finance Ministry was misleading.

A member of the committee, Karibi Sunday, PDP, Kogi, who initiated the probe, accused the trio of taking sides with 27 state governors who were accused of mismanaging the bailout fund meant for payment of workers’ salaries and retirement benefits.

Karibi told the officials that workers unions in the affected states would be invited to state their own side of the story, maintaining that the trio violated the Freedom of Information Act, FOI, by their alleged conduct.

Archibong Okon, PDP, Akwa Ibom, said in his contribution: “The refusal by the trio to provide revealing documents on the bailout fund speaks volume of their level of incompetence.”