By Femi Ayeni
LAGOS JUNE 30TH (URHOBOTODAY)-The Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele last week disclosed that it spent over 290billion Naira for its over heads, salaries, traveling, estacodes and operations in 2014.
On Average the CBN spends 800million daily without appropriation by the National Assembly.
The amount the CBN spends is bigger than the amount spent by the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives and the National security Office, combined.
The CBN Governor was alleged to have paid bribes of $1million to each senator for his confirmation- from proceeds of the $20Billion missing funds lodged with Zenith Bank while he was Managing Director.
The Governor’s donation of 60billion Naira was the highest donor to the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] campaign for 2015 elections.
The Governor single-handedly approved 20 billion naira real sector support to his chairman’s Jim Ovias petrochemical refinery without Board Approval against a single obligor limit of 10 billion naira.
The Governor recently devalued the Naira and the surplus funds from the exchange rate gain in excess of 500 billion naira was kept in the CBN balance sheet and for Bank sterilization instead of paying it to the federation Account for sharing, no wonder the federal and states governments can’t pay salaries inspire of surplus Naira gained from devaluation.
The Market has completely lost confidence on Emefiele clueless leadership.
He has created a bubble in interest rates and work with the banks and his mentor to manipulate the bond market and the exchange rate through a complicated system of forward rate pricing.
The only beneficiaries are the Banks and the CBN which is declaring surplus profits at a time the economy is bleeding.
The EFCC, ICPC, DSS and the presidency should quickly intervene and unearth the massive corruption and currency manipulation going on at the CBN.
They recently sacked the chief trader hired from America who raised a memo to question this unhealthy practice.
More disclosure to come…
Courtesy: Dr Femi Olatunji Ayeni