On Tuesday, the senate resolved to investigate how total of N30tn was spent by the administration of the former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The sum of N30tn was a Ways and Means loan of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the CBN finance the government budget shortfall. The money was collected under the regime of Godwin Emefiele. The senate stated that the reckless spending the N30tn largely accounted for the food and security crises the country was currently facing.
The investigation is as a result of Food crisis, Naira depreciation, insecurities currently going on in the country.
The red chamber then resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate what the N30tn overdraft was spent on by the immediate past government, noting that the details of the spending were deliberately not made available to the National Assembly.
On Wednesday, February 21, ad-hoc committee will be constituted which will also investigate the N10tn spent on the Anchor Borrowers Scheme, the $2.4bn forex transaction out of the $7bn obligation made for the purpose as well as other investigation program.
President Bola Tinubu and his economic team have come under intense criticism after his last year’s fuel subsidy removal and exchange unification policy unleashed harsh economic conditions on citizens.
The ad-hoc committe is expected to revel the way Buhari administration mismanaged the country funds and resources.
Buhari had in a letter to the National Assembly in January 2023 requested that the N22.7trn Ways and Means loan should be converted to a 40-year bond with a moratorium of three years.
He also requested approval to borrow an additional N1trn to fund the N819.5 billion 2022 supplementary budget which the lawmakers approved last December.
