CBN Insists On Housing Fund Remission

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has insisted that it remitted the N13.4 billion realised from the sale of houses in 2008 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The Deputy Governor, Corporate Service of CBN, Mr Suleman Barau who was responding to the query raised by the office of the Auditor-General of the federation said that CBN paid the money as part of N24 million operating surplus, remitted to government  coffers.

Barau noted that CBN did not withhold the proceed gotten from the sale of the houses in execution of  the  monetisation policy of Federal Government as the public Account Committee of the House of Representatives has argued.

But, available records before the committee showed that what the bank remitted was N12.6bn and not N13.4bn.

On their part, officials from the AGF office could not provide the breakdown of the N13.4bn they said the CBN owed.

The Chairman of the committee, Mr. Solomon Olamilekan, later stood the matter down pending when the AGF’s office would provide the breakdown and reconcile with the figure of the CBN.

The query on the N940m property the CBN bought for the National Planning Commission was also stood down pending when the commission would avail the committee its own records of the transaction.

On the N74m contract for the CBN’s Lagos office, which was later reviewed to N79m, the committee cleared the bank, saying that it had received “the necessary documents” on the contract.

The committee put three other queries on hold pending further investigations.

They included the multiple contracts of N50m, N44m and N24m for the renovation of the Lagos residence of the CBN governor and the sale of his Wuse residence in Abuja at a “ridiculously low price of N160m.”

Another deputy governor’s residence in Maitama, Abuja, was also said to have been sold for N75m.