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News
Thursday, July 19, 2012
National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
SEC staff protest as FG recalls Oteh CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
Emeka Madubuike, said that the frequent changes of the SEC management is not a good signal for the market because in the long run, investors are going to suffer the negative impact in the market. Reacting to Ms Oteh’s recall, a financial analyst, Dr. Joseph Nnana, described the decision of government as desirable, adding that “it just demonstrated government’s commitment to due process and this should send signals to public servants on the need to be transparent in all their
dealings. Nnana, a former Director of the Central bank of Nigeria, said government must have given due consideration to the contents of the independent audit report before taken the decision which, he said, is desirable to current efforts to reform the capital market. Meanwhile, Justice Abubakar Sadiq Umar of a Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court yesterday granted bail to the suspended Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market, Hon. Herman Hembe, and
his deputy, Hon. Azubuogu Ifeanyi, in the sum of N1m each and two sureties in like sum. The sureties, according to the judge, must be residents in Abuja, while the Registrar of the court will verify compliance with the bail conditions. Both lawmakers were arrested and detained by the EFCC for allegedly demanding for bribes totaling N44m from the SEC DG to enable the committee soft-pedal on its investigations of the capital market, but the Commission is now prosecuting them for fraudulent
conversion of official travel allowances to personal use. In granting bail to the embattled lawmakers, Justice Umar noted that the issue of bail was at the discretion of the court, pointing out that it is the constitutional right of the accused persons to enjoy bail pending trial, especially where the prosecution failed to adduce evidence to the contrary, as in the instant case. Prosecuting counsel, Mr. Jeff Ojeifu, had prayed the court to disregard the administrative bail granted the accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes
L-R: Supervisor for Works, Oji River Local Government Area, Mr. Hillary Nwozor; Chairman, Chief Gabriel Onuzulike and Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Enugu State chapter, Mr. Louis Dilibe, during the inspection of projects in the local government area in Enugu, yesterday. PHOTO: NAN
Commission, EFCC, and remanded Hembe and Ifeanyi in prison custody. This was shortly after they pleaded “not guilty” to the charge. He said his motion was brought pursuant to Sections 340 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) as well as 35 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which presume an accused innocent until the contrary is proved. Meanwhile, full trial has commenced in the case brought against Hembe and Ifeanyi as the Commission brought about four witnesses yesterday to validate its claim against the duo. The first prosecution witness (PW 1), who gave his name as Austin Adachi, a Senior Detective Superintendent with the EFCC almost contradicted himself when in one breath he said, “investigation revealed that the sum of four thousand and ninety-five (US Dollars), $4,095 was collected by each of the accused persons to attend a conference in Dominican Republic and that they did not attend the conference,” and in another he stated, “available documents during investigation showed that the 1st accused person actually travelled.” The Commission is pros-
ecuting the two lawmakers on a two-count charge of converting to their personal use about N600,000 being money allegedly released by SEC for them to travel to the Dominican Republic for a refresher conference in October 2011. The offence is contrary to Section 308 of the Penal Code Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. The separate counts read thus: “That you Hon Iorwase Herman Hembe sometime in October 2011 in Abuja within the Judicial Division of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory dishonestly converted to your own use the sum of $4095 (Four thousand, Ninety Five Dollars) being money given to you by the Securities and Exchange Commission as your travelling allowance to PUNCTA CANA, Dominican Republic to attend a conference which you did not attend and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 308 of the Penal Code Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (Abuja) 2004 and punishable under section 309 of the same code. Reports by: Ise-Oluwa Ige, Tola Akinmutimi, John Uwe, Omeiza Ajayi, EMMANUEL ONANI and Johnson Okanlawon
Why CBN can’t present budget to National Assembly –Sanusi CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
does not know how much the bank will spend each year. Speaking at the 17th Annual Seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors, in Akure, Ondo State, on Wednesday, Sanusi, who was represented by an executive board member of the bank, Prof. Sam Olofin, said for this reason, the CBN only presents its budgets to the National Assembly after implementation and not before. “The CBN budget is not static but dynamic so it is not possible that the bank will present its budget to the lawmakers before its implementation because it does not know how much it will spend at the beginning of each year itself,” Olofin said. Olofin, who spoke on the topic, “A talk on the independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria”, said that the CBN
could not know its budget sum ex-ante (before implementation) because it could not possibly know how many banks it might need to bail out and how much mopping up it would need to do, after each ‘inappropriate spending’ by the government. “For this reason, the CBN can only and does only present its budget to the National Assembly post-ante (after spending) and only for the purpose of information and not for approval,” he explained. He added that Section 3 of the CBN Act 2007 gives the apex bank goal independence (to set monetary policy goals); management independence (to hire and fire) and operational independence (to determine what policy instruments to employ), and that this should not be altered. Rather, he advocated that provisions of the section should be enshrined in the Nigerian constitution
to avoid a case whereby it would be amended arbitrarily. He explained that the CBN autonomy had never been absolute, as the bank is accountable to the Presidency, as it gives regular reports on what it is doing to the National Assembly, as it gives a report to the lawmakers at least twice every year, and to the general public through the press. The bank also said the financial inclusion initiative, an aspect of the payment system policy, is expected to bring at least 50 million more Nigerians into the formal banking in the next eight years. Olofin stated that the apex bank instituted a drastic review of the payments system with the objective of bringing it at par with the global leaders, adding that the financial inclusion programme in particular would attract the unbanked to mainstream banking system.
He explained that, apart from expanding, deepening and modernizing the payment systems in the country, the cashless policy is also to galvanize the apex bank in ensuring that Nigeria ranks among the top 20 economies of the world in line with the nation’s Vision 2020 aspirations. Sanusi said the financial inclusion initiative is one of the key components of the ongoing reform by the CBN to raise the standard of financial services and payment to meet global best practice. He said: “One of the cardinal strategies of this programme is the cash-less policy which aims to reduce drastically, the volume of cash in circulation, in favour of electronic forms of transaction “The policy will help achieve the CBN’s objectives of expanding, deepening and modernising the payment systems in Nigeria and also galvanise the
CBN in ensuring that Nigeria ranks among the top 20 economies of the world in line with the nation’s Vision 2020 aspirations. “This policy will also impact positively on economic growth and development,” he added.. The CBN governor explained that one of the major reasons for introducing the cash-less policy was to break the traditional barriers hindering financial inclusion for millions of Nigerians and bring lowcost, secure and convenient financial services to urban, semi-urban and rural areas across the country, especially through the mobile payment services. The CBN governor expressed optimism that through the cash-less programme, the bank would mitigate some of the negative consequences associated with the high usage of physical cash in the economy and the high cost of
handling cash. He said: “In a recent survey carried out by the CBN, we discovered that only 10 per cent of daily banking transactions are above N150,000, while 10 per cent accounts for majority of the high-value transactions. “This suggests that the bulk of the banking population subsidise the costs that the tiny minority incurs in terms of high cash usage. Furthermore, high cash usage results in a lot of money circulating outside the formal sector, thus limiting the effectiveness of monetary policy.” The Branch Controller, CBN Akure, Mrs. Ramat Yusuf-Adeyemi, said the cashless-policy was a gradual and radical movement of the entire payment system in Nigeria from the use of physical cash to other modes like cheques, internet banking, PoS, mobile payment, debit and credit card among others.