President
Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday said the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, spoke out of
ignorance when he accused the present government of illegally overdrawing the
country’s central consolidated account.
The
account, domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria, was said to have been
overdrawn to the tune of N4.7 trillion by the Buhari administration, an act the
traditional ruler said contradicted Section 38 (2) of the CBN Act.
“CBN
claims on the FGN now tops N4.7 trillion — equal to almost 50 per cent of the
FGN’s total domestic debt,” Mr. Sanusi said. “This is a clear violation of the
Central Bank Act of 2007 (Section 38.2) which caps advances to the FGN at 5 per
cent of last year’s revenues.”
Mr. Sanusi
also attacked the federal government’s plan to borrow $30 billion from foreign
lenders to fund the budget and build infrastructure. He said no one will lend
Nigeria money at a time it is operating five different tiers of foreign
exchange rates.
Mr. Buhari
responded through his media aide, Garba Shehu, on Saturday night, saying the
former CBN governor “doesn’t have his facts as far as those issues are
concerned.”
The
president admitted that he ordered a massive borrowing from the CBN, but said
the limit had not been pushed.
“The issue
in CBN, that government has overdrawn its Central Consolidated Account is true,
but the overdrawing is within limits.
“The
overdraw does not exceed 1.5 trillion. It is incorrect to say, as he did that
the account was overdrawn by 4.5 trillion,” he said.
The
response was posted by Mr. Shehu on his Twitter page, and he said the
government still had sufficient fund in the treasury single account to clear
its loan from CBN.
“But even
assuming that he was correct. This is a govt that has money in excess the
amount he mentioned in the Treasury Single Account, TSA.
“It is
just like you, a bank customer operating two accounts, one in the red & the
other, well funded to the point that it can at any time wipe the
indebtedness on the other,” Mr. Buhari said.
“Would any
bank manager lose their sleep over this?”
Mr. Sanusi
had been attacking the Buhari administration’s economic policies for a while.
On August
24, a week before Nigeria officially slipped into recession, the emir blamed the economic crisis
on the incoherent policies of the federal government, and warned that Mr.
Buhari may end his reign in the same manner as President Goodluck Jonathan.
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