TSA PROBE: CBN boss Emefiele, NNPC GMD Baru risk arrest for shunning Reps’ summons

Angered by the continued failures of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, to honour its summons, the House of Representatives has threatened them with arrest.

Issuing fresh summons on them on Wednesday to come and explain the total accruals into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) since inception, the House vowed to arrest them if they fail to honour its invitation this time around.

The ad hoc committee of the House, which invited the officials at its resumed sitting in Abuja, had at four different times asked them to appear before it, but the duo it said, had consistently refused to appear.

Following the development, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Abubakar Danburam-Nuhu, then summoned them again on Wednesday.

It was estimated that N1.65 trillion expectedly as of July, should have been remitted into the NNPC sub-account of the TSA.

However, the corporation was yet to explain if the money had been lodged into the account as of the period it was due.

Recalling how the committee had met with officials from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Auditor-General of the Federation, Danburam-Nuhu, recalled that Baru and Emefiele had been avoiding the panel.

According to him, the committee had written several letters to both officials but they always preferred to send representatives.

This was as Emefiele on Wednesday sent Mr. Kolawole Balogun to represent him, while Baru delegated Mr. Isiaka Abdulrazaq, but the committee refused to meet with them. but insisted that Emefiele and Baru must appear in person.
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Also summoned by the committee is the TSA software developer, SystemSpecs.
“Once we summon them and they don’t come, we will invoke Section 89 of the 1999 Constitution and issue an arrest warrant. This is the fourth meeting of this committee on this very important matter of the TSA, but neither the CBN governor nor the GMD of the NNPC deemed it fit to appear in person, despite our invitations.

“As a parliament, we won’t accept this. The issue of the TSA is very important to this administration. We met with other stakeholders and there are a lot of issues raised, which can only be addressed by the CBN governor and the NNPC GMD,” Danburam-Nuhu stated.

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