Stop approving loans for Buhari, CISLAC urges NASS

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) on Tuesday urged the National Assembly to stop approving loan requests from President Muhammadu Buhari over fears that the funds are being diverted by government ministries and agencies.

CISLAC’s Executive Director, Auwal Ibrahim (Rasfanjani) told journalists in Abuja that the constant loan requests (both local and foreign) by the government were worrying.

Ibrahim explained that “the Senate had, on March 5, approved $22.7 billion foreign loan request from the Executive. The Upper Legislative Chamber had also approved N850 billion and $5.513 billion borrowing requests from President Muhammadu Buhari in April and June.”

Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, had also disclosed in a speech that the Senate had so far approved $28 billion as loan requests for the Executive.

Auwal also called on the National Assembly to prevail on the Executive to ensure recovering of misappropriated, and looted funds as indicated in various government reports.

He said the 2018 findings and reports of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (NEITI) had showed that there were some agencies in the extractive sector that had failed to remit funds due to the Federation Account.

He pointed out that the Office of Auditor-General of the Federation reports had also indicated that 160 agencies had defaulted in the submission of their audited accounts for 2016.

He said 265 agencies had also defaulted in submission of audited accounts for 2017, while 11 agencies had never submitted any financial statements since inception.

He said it was not in the best interest of Nigerians to be appropriating funds to agencies that were yet to account for funds it had received over the years.