Leke Baiyewu, AbujaThe House of Representatives has begun investigation of the non-refund of $7bn withdrawn from Nigeria’s foreign reserves by the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2006 to pay banks and assets managers, which have since not been refunded. READ ALSO: FG declares Monday public holidayA member, Mr Abubakar Ahmad, who moved the motion recalled that sometime in 2006, the CBN disbursed $7bn of Nigeria’s $38.07bn foreign reserves to 14 Global Asset Managers and their 14 Nigerian banks local partners to manage. The lawmaker said, “The House is aware that the CBN gave each asset manager and its Nigerian bank counterpart $500m from the nation’s foreign reserves to manage. The 14 Nigerian banks that received the said funds, about six of them, namely Oceanic Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Bank PHB, FIN Bank, AfriBank, and very recently Diamond Bank Plc were merged/acquired by other banks under the oversight of the CBN. After 13 years, Nigeria’s hard-earned $7bn foreign reserve has not been repaid to the CBN and there is no action put in place to ensure repayment of the funds.”

Source: Punch November 07, 2019 14:04 UTC