By Seyi Babalola
Financial expert and public intellectual, Mr Tilewa Adebajo, has called out the Senate for its alleged secret approvals of requests from the Executive to securitise Nigeria’s Ways and Means advances.
He said that the act validates the conversion of Nigeria’s huge ways and means indebtedness to further loans as bonds and other securities. “Securitisation means the government now issues treasury bills and bonds to pay off the ways and means”.
Adebajo stated: “Ways and means was never supposed to exceed N1 trillion yet now it has surpassed N30 trillion, which is against section 38 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act. Under Section 38 of the CBN Act, the apex bank is granted the authority to borrow from the apex bank, but such overdraft should not surpass five per cent of the government’s revenue from the previous year. The senate approved the securitisation of ways and means which it should not have done.”
Adebajo made the observation at the Audit Reporting Training organised by FrontFoot Media Initiative held on 25-26 October 2023 at the GulfView Hotel, GRA, Ikeja.
He alleged that the Senate approved the measure secretly as it was not listed in the Senate Order Paper when it did so.
“Ways and means financing is now 30 times more than is legally allowed. Securitisation of ways and means is an illegal act. Nigeria’s deficit is increasing annually. Now ninety-five (95%) per cent of Nigeria’s revenue yields for debt service.”
Tilewa noted that while regular citizens cannot do much to stop the spendthrift direction of the Federal and State governments, the media and professional groups should be more active in calling out misbehaviour and wrong direction. “Unfortunately, the citizen is too busy struggling with survival.
“The key responsibility falls on the media and the elite. The elite have compromised. The media are not pulling their weight.”
Even so, he asked citizens to pay closer attention to Nigeria’s financial management.
Adebajo advised, “Anytime you have a budget, ask for the audited accounts for the same year to juxtapose. What did you say you were going to do? What did you really do? What revenue target did you project? What was the actual revenue? What was the expenditure projection? What was actually spent and on what?”
Emeka Izeze, director and partner, said the Audit Reporting Training: X-Raying State Government Audit Reports is a flagship capacity development programme of FrontFoot Media Initiative.
“It is a targeted training of journalists which we are undertaking under the auspices of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and the sponsorship of the MacArthur Foundation,” Izeze affirmed.
The Lagos workshop, FrontFoot Media Initiative stated, is the fourth in its series to train the media to pay closer attention to the audit report for its significance. Earlier workshops were in Benin, Awka, and Abuja, FCT.
