The House of Representatives on Monday grilled the acting managing director of the Bank of Industry (BOI) over the utilization of the N500 billion power and airline intervention fund (PAIF) established by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2009 but domiciled and managed by the BOI.
Chairman of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating activities of Development Finance Institutions (DFI), Hon. Emeka Anohu (PDP- Anambra) has subsequently given the acting managing director of BOI; Mr. Waheed Olagunju 72 –hour ultimatum to furnish the committee with details of all the airlines that benefited from the loan and their level of indebtedness.
Anohu who made these demands at the on-going investigation where the acting managing director was queried said it was necessary to know how the DFIs have impacted on the Nigerian people.
Members of the ad hoc committee were unanimous in insisting that the BOI account for how the N500 billion PAIF was judiciously utilized.
Rep. Chukwuemeka Ujam (PDP- Enugu), Rep. Darlington Nwokocha (PDP- Abia) and Rep. Kehinde Agboola (PDP-Ekiti) observed that N500 billion was a huge sum of money and private companies that benefited from the policy must be made to account for it.
In his words, Emeka Anohu stated that "The DFIs were established to stimulate the economy and one of the ways to know to what extent this has been accomplished is to find out how many Nigerians have benefited from the various intervention funds in these institutions”.
Making his presentation before the ad hoc committee, the acting managing director, Waheed Olagunju explained that "We have been able to invest about N1 trillion since 2001 in addition to managing the N500b Power and Airline fund.
Another issue that didn't go down well with members of the committee was the refusal of the BOI to publicly mention the names of the funded airlines.
The managing director BOI insisted it was unethical to publicize the names of the airlines, "we uphold the values and ethics of the bank so we can not disclose the names of the airlines", Olagunju submitted.
However, Rep. Kehinde Agboola said "we are asking of Nigerians money, how are we sure the money was released to the airlines, we appeal to you to be as open as possible", he probed.
The managing director later bowed to the pressure of the lawmakers and he promised to oblige their request and also furnish them with all necessary documents.
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