Senate gives Emefiele 72 hours to appear before it over missing $9.5m

Senate Committee on Public Accounts has given the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele, 72 hours to appear it over the alleged missing of $9.5million interest that accrued from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) investment
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, had noted that both the rate of interest were done covertly.
According to Urhoghide, there were many issues Emefiele needed to respond to corroborate some statements of account.
He said that the apex bank had till next tomorrow to appear the committee to address the issues.
The committee had summoned CBN officials two weeks ago over alleged disappearance of the fund.
Emefiele and his officials failed to appear during its sitting yesterday.
The Auditor General of the Federation had in his 2016 audit report wrote about the transaction.
The query reads: “During the examination of transfers to Foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Accounts, it was observed that during the year 2016, amount totaling $6 million and $3.5 million were credited to the Foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Account as interest on funds invested.
“The authority for placing the funds which yielded the above interests totaling $9.5 million in deposit account, the principal sums deposited, the tenor and rate of interest were not made available for audit verification.
“This observation had also been a subject of my reports since 2017 without any positive response from Central Bank of Nigeria.
“Records made available for audit further revealed that the balance in the foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude accounts as of 28th December 2016 were USD0.00 and USD251,826 respectively.
“This suggests the foreign PPT/Royalty was depleted before the year-end.
“The Accountant-General has been requested to provide the authority for the funds invested, the tenor of the investment, rate of interest payable, certificate for the funds invested and forward same for audit verification.”