Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) former governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has dropped a bombshell.
He said: “The exchange rate needs to be stabilised and we have to address the fundamental question, why is there no money coming in? Why is the NNPCL not able to bring in dollars?”
“Am sorry this is the question that cost me my job and I will continue asking this question until NNPCL fixes it up or until I die. Where are the dollars? We need to shine a light on the NNPCL.”
“The finance minister cannot tell you because he doesn’t have a monitoring system that reports to him. The finance minister can’t tell you how many barrels of petrol we produce and export.”
“It is only the NNPCL that can give those figures. The finance ministry needs to know how much oil we produce daily, how much we sell, and where the money is going.”
“We are no longer paying subsidies so where are the dollars? It was under recovery during the subsidy era and that has been stopped, so where is the money?”
“This was the issue I raised for which I was suspended, well you can suspend me again. The NNPCL is the most opaque oil company in the world. When I was in the central bank for 15years, they had not been audited.”
“We have to follow the money from production to export to return, where is the money going? We paid N11tn in subsidy and there is no accountability up till now. The National Assembly called the NNPCL to bring the documents, but they refused.”
“By the way, let me advise that the idea of the President becoming a petroleum minister is not a good idea. The last president was the minister of petroleum for eight years.”
“When I was governor of the central bank we had a minister of petroleum so when I talk about the NNPCL, I could attack Diezani Madueke.”
“Now, nobody can talk about petroleum because for eight years if you talk, you are attacking the president. We need that buffer, somebody has to be there, so a minister has to be there who is held accountable by Nigerians.”
“It is important to talk about the current conversation emanating especially from the National Assembly, to amend the Central Bank Act. Let me add my voice to those who have said there is nothing wrong with the Central Bank of Nigeria Act.”
“There is nothing wrong with BOFIA. The CBN Act is one of the best central banking laws in the world. In fact when we reviewed central bank laws, the only laws we saw that we would learn a few things from was Bank Negara of Malaysia.”
“Now if people who are supposed to implement a law don’t implement it, the solution is not to change the law, and this reaction is kneejerk if you take away the independence of the central bank and bring it under political control.”
“You would hurt the system and on long-term, you are institutionalising the lack of autonomy. The reality is, you have an independent autonomous central bank whose independence was undermined by a combination of politicians and central bank actors. It is time to go back to what the central bank is supposed to do and implement the law.”
“Look at the example of Ways and Means. That scenario only happened because, along the line, all checks and balances collapsed. When the National Assembly talks about Ways and Means, the question is: where were the oversight committees of the National Assembly?”
“We were all asked when we were in position as governor to bring money, on several occasions. There was a day I was called by the finance minister that they needed N100bn.”
“I told them they had reached the limit and we had to find other solutions to raise funds for the government without breaking the law.”
“If this tells anything, it is that when people start to complain about too many regulations, they need to think about when regulation was rolled back in America. Regulations are dynamic and can change.”
“We have to ensure that banks are well-managed and that banks understand the risks that they run. Now, regulations are one thing of course and the actual doing of the regulations is another thing.”