As the controversy rages over the existence of 16 previously undisclosed accounts belonging to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has absolved itself from any wrongdoing challenging the members of the House of Representatives to prove the apex bank’s culpability. This is coming as members of the House have vowed to institute sanctions against any MDA that is found to maintain accounts not known to the National Assembly.

Speaking to Saturday Vanguard through its Head, Public Affairs, Mr. Festus Odokos, the CBN wanted the lawmakers who he said were chasing shadows to determine those responsible for opening the accounts instead of a making a blanket accusation.

In response to a question, he asked, “Is it that CBN opened the account for itself or it was opened on behalf of government? Was the account not opened by the Accountant-General? Who owns the account? What is the account for?”

The CBN challenged the House of Representatives to disclose the names of the accounts saying “let them tell us the names of the accounts. They think that the CBN can open an account on behalf of any government agent without the authority of the Accountant- General

“The Minister of Finance does not know about it, the Accountant-General doesn’t know and we just open an account?  Is that what happens?” He queried.

Members of the House who spoke to Saturday Vanguard in Abuja were livid that such accounts exist at the whims and caprice of the executive and vowed to bring the full brunt of the law of any official that may have violated the law.

But the spokesman of the House, Hon. Eziuche Ubani, stated that the CBN was not being targeted by the members who he said were interested in knowing whether or no the accounts existed.

“Nobody is accusing the CBN. Those accounts, do they exist or not? They exist and they belong to the Ministries. So nobody is saying that the CBN is culpable. What we are dealing with are the ministries and departments of government. Are they not?
“Who owns those accounts? They belong to the MDAs and those are the ones we are dealing with. So, I don’t know the question of saying we are chasing shadows.

“Our point is that who are the owners of these accounts? Those are the ones that are answerable to us,” he said.
According to him, “The point of departure for us is that the President has come to say ‘look, I don’t know anything about them.’ He has also come to say that ministries and departments should ‘go and talk to the members of the National Assembly, give them, all the information that they require’.”

Hon. Ubani remarked that the purpose of the House’s action was to change the way budget has been treated in the country over the years which has created more problems for the people instead of alleviating their worries.

He added, “What has happened over the years is a very poor fiscal regime. Budgets are made and the money is not spent and they still remain with them instead of being returned to the treasury. They are put in an account and in the new year people will start spending money that are not in the budget in that particular budget year which is an offence.
“In the NNPC, there are some dedicated accounts that the NNPC has never, ever really declared to the public.

“Then, there are some other agencies like that. For a start, we started asking questions about those accounts because we know they existed. We asked for the revenue profile and to be sure that the money declared in the revenue profile is the one that exist so that if you have a budget of N10 you will know what exists to be spent in that year is a N10 budget.

“We started asking questions and about 16 of them were discovered. Those ones will be returned to the treasury and possibly closed. The good thing about it is that we are trying to use this budget to change our budgetary philosophy. In the past, all kinds of things were done in the name of budget.

“Budgets that had no relevance to the needs of the people, budgets whose parameters are not quite under the control of the people who are doing the budgeting. Budgets that have suffered from the shocks of these accounts that are floating or monies that are floating, budgets that make sense only in the fact that the President has presented it.

“After the budgets are passed, they don’t make any significant meaning. We have been trying to see if we can make a budget this year by changing the budgeting philosophy to ensure that the budgets work for us,” the House megaphone declared.

Continuing, he said, “It is something the House has to decide on. The first thing we need to do is to ensure that we have recovered those accounts wherever they are and then conclude the budget. When we conclude the budget, we will now decide whether anybody has violated the law. As a parliament, through our oversight functions, we will deal with it when we get there.”

Similarly, the chairman of the House Committee on Information and National Orientation, Hon. Dino Melaye noted that the House would from now take serious actions against the Executive should it continue to maintain undisclosed accounts.

“It is unfortunate that a government can be running what they call a secret account. That completely negates the cry against corruption. It negates sincerity of purpose on the part of government to fight corruption sincerely and holistically,” he said.

According to him, “The House of Representatives will not take it lightly at all. That should be investigated and anybody found culpable prosecuted according to the laws of our land. From this time henceforth, our satellite will be on the 2008 budget to see if there will be a repeat of the uncivil and undemocratic acts. It amounts to economic recklessness that is responsible for running secret accounts.

“The Constitution of the Federal Republic stipulates categorically that every money that will be spent must be appropriated. That is the reason why some of us are advocating that the benchmark must be increased because if you don’t increase the benchmark, the money will still come back to government through excess crude. If it comes from excess crude, because it has not been appropriated, they will now have the onus to spend it the way they want.

“Basically, that is why some of us are clamouring that we should raise the benchmark and anything accruing to us from the excess sale of crude oil should go to the consolidated fund of government or foreign reserve. It is a deliberate omission for the executive arm of government to spend money not appropriated.

“It is an impeachable offence to the President, governor or ministers to spend money not appropriated. The powers of appropriation absolutely lies in the National Assembly and if the President appropriates money to himself or keep money that are not known to the National Assembly or not appropriated by the National Assembly, then it is a deliberate act of corruption and it is impeachable,” Hon. Melaye remarked.

However, the chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Hon. John Eno, who is at the centre of the discovery of the funds told Saturday Vanguard that the accounts were not secret per se.

According to him,” I don’t think it is really quite correct to describe these accounts as secret accounts.
These accounts are merely titled as special accounts not part of Federation Account. These accounts represent those monies that government considered are not supposed to be paid into Federation Account. They have been there. Those accounts are accounts that are maintained for specific purposes.”

He said that the problem was that because the executive normally kept away such money, attempt had not been made in the past to capture it in the budget.

“Because it has been so in the past, there has been no effort on the part of the National Assembly to log unto such money. It became a matter because the two committees on Finance in both the House and the Senate considered the fact that our budget is a yearly thing, from January to December.

Source: Vanguard