The House of
Representatives, on Monday asked the Acting Managing Director of the Bank of
Industry, BOI, to explain the N500 billion power and airline intervention fund,
PAIF.
The PAIF was
established by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in 2009, but is domiciled and
managed by the BOI
The Chairman
of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating activities of
Development Finance Institutions (DFI), Emeka Anohu (PDP-Anambra) gave the BOI
boss, Waheed Olagunju, a 72–hour ultimatum to furnish them with details.
The chairman
said Mr. Olagunju should get details of all the airlines that benefitted from
the loan and their level of indebtedness.
Mr. 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 had impacted
on the Nigerian people.
“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,’’ he said.
Members of
the Ad-hoc committee insisted that BOI account for how the N500 billion PAIF
was utilised.
Chukwuemeka
Ujam (PDP-Enugu) and Darlington Nwokocha (PDP-Abia) said respectively 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
defence, Mr. Olagunju said: “We have been able to invest about one trillion
naira since 2001, in addition to managing the N500 billion Power and Airline
Intervention Fund (PAIF), set up in 2009 on behalf of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, CBN.
“Also, from
the four billion naira approved for micro finance banks, we have been able to
disburse N3.1 billion till date.
“To show how
healthy the BOI is, 97 per cent of our disbursed loans are performing.”
Mr. Olagunju
also informed the committee that the bank was on the verge of completing 100
million dollars solar power project facility from the African Development Bank
(AfDB).
He explained
that a pilot project would commence in the six geo-political zones before going
national with six export-based companies already shortlisted to benefit from
the loan facility.
According to
him, because commercial banks cannot play the role of DFIs; and for
entrepreneurs and investors to minimise cost of production and other risks, it
is BOI’s mandate to support projects in high priority areas by paying lots of
attention to game changing projects.
Asked about
the position of the management of BOI on the proposed Development Bank of
Nigeria, DBN, Mr. Olagunju said based on the official explanation offered on
the proposed bank; BOI was not opposed to it.
“BOI is not
opposed to the proposed bank because the official explanation was that the DBN
would source for funds and retail it to DFIs.
`The
proposed bank would be a great development because DFIs would have
opportunities of accessing funds for their various intervention projects.
The
Committee, however, requested BOI to make available to it full details of
beneficiaries of its various intervention facilities.
The News
Agency of Nigeria reports that the investigation continues on January 25.
(NAN)
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