The Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property has commenced investigation into the status of the N7billion bailout funds given to commercial banks in 2006.
Speaking during the official handing over of 18 recovered vehicles belonging to the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC), the panel’s chairman, Okoi Obono-Obla said all the commercial banks benefited from these bailout funds in 2006 and it was worrisome that none has returned the money to the government coffers.
He said when the panel enquired from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) about the status of the funds, the panel was told that the money was ‘dashed’ to the commercial banks.
“CBN told us that its board in 2006 passed a resolution saying that this money should be dashed to the commercial banks which we are investigating because how can you dash public funds to commercial banks? Commercial banks do not belong to the federal government but to individuals. So, we are investigating and we are going to recover that money and return it to the coffers of federal government of Nigeria,” he added.
He urged Nigerians to take advantage of the whistle-blower initiative of the government to give information so as to recover what belong to the government and have been taken away.
He said the 18 vehicles that were returned to the NPC were vehicles given to previous commissioners of the commission who however decided to take the vehicles home after their tenure. “We got the information from a patriotic staff of the NPC through the whistle-blower initiative and we went into action to recover the vehicles. We got the information on March 23 and the vehicles were recovered by end of May,” he said.
The Director, Census with NPC, Liman Shetima Baba said the commission in the past years have had deficit of logistics specifically with vehicles. “We are planning to conduct the next census and logistics is one of the most important aspects of preparation. Thus, these 18 recovered vehicles will go a long way in helping us with our logistics’ needs,” he added.
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