ABUJA-THE House of Representatives on Thursday threatened the finance minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Director General Debt Management Office, DM0, Abraham Nwankwo and the Governor of the central bank of Nigeria ,CBN, Dr Godwin Emefiele for deliberately refusing to give out information on how the N600 billion bail-out fund was disbursed.
The House, through its adhoc committee on the disbursement and usage of the bail out fund also lampooned the director -general of the debt management office ,DMO, for the treating the issue with levity. Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Governor of the CBN, Mr.Godwin Emefiele, Chairman of the committee, Rep Ibrahim Sadiq described the refusal of the trio to appear before his investigative committee as an affront on the institution of the national assembly empowered by sections 88,89 of the 1999 constitution as amended to probe the usage of monies disbursed from the federation account. Sadiq threatened to apply the full weight of the law on the three officials, he argued that officials of the aforementioned outfits who appeared before the committee on behalf of their bosses lack the competence to handle the sensitive issue at stake. He further claimed that information contained in the documents earlier made available to the committee by officials of the DMO, CBN, and the finance ministry were misleading. A member of the committee, Rep Karibi Sunday, PDP, Kogi who initiated the probe accused the trio of taking sides with 27 state governors who were accused of mismanaging the bail out fund meant for the payment of workers salaries and retirement benefits. Karibi told the officials that workers unions in the affected states would be invited to state their own side of the story, he maintained that the trio had violated the freedom of information Act ,FOI, by their alleged conduct. Rep Archibong Okon ,PDP,Akwa Ibom: ITU, Ibiono, said” the refusal by the trio to provide revealing documents on the bail out fund speaks volume of their level of incompetence”.
