The Nigerian Senate has resolved to launch a fresh probe into alleged uneven disbursement of N483 billion loan to the Medium and Small-Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in the six geo-political zones by the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) in 2021.
This followed a motion by the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (Borno South) and co- sponsored by 64 other lawmakers during Wednesday’s plenary.
It would be recalled that the 9th Senate had set up an ad-hoc panel to investigate the claim that the South-West, especially Lagos State, had the largest number of the loan beneficiaries of about 47 per cent of the entire loan.
The DBN officials then told the panel that they adhered strictly to the criteria set up by their regulators and not geopolitical considerations in given out loans.
Senator Ndume, who was visibly dissatisfied with the outcome of the last investigation and the committee’s recommendations, said there was need for the Senate to look at the issue critically again owing to the huge disparity in the loan disbursement.
He said the Bank’s Annual Integrated Statutory Report 2021 showed that it disbursed a loan worth N483 billion in 2021, adding that out of the N483 billion, only 11 per cent went to the 19 northern states totaling N53 billion while Lagos alone got 47 per cent, which amounts to N227 billion.
Ndume said breakdown of the loan disbursement, according to the bank’s report, further showed that southwest got the lion share with 57 per cent of the total loan, estimated to be N274.7 billion.
He said south-south accessed 17 per cent (N81.9 billion); north central and FCT, 11 per cent (N53 billion); south east, nine per cent (N43.3 billion); north west, five per cent (N24 billion) and northeast, a paltry one per cent (N4.8 billion).
He noted that the five sectors considered for the loan are oil and gas (42%), manufacturing (16%), agriculture, forestry and fishery (7.2%), trade and commerce (6.3%), and transportation and storage (3.5%).
According to Ndume, the DBN existed to alleviate financing constraints being faced by MSMEs in Nigeria through providing finance, partial credit guarantees and technical assistance to eligible financial intermediaries on a market-conforming and fully financially sustainable basis.
Senators, who contributed to the debate, all agreed that the Red Chamber should again probe the loan disbursement with a view to addressing disparity. They also called for the review of the criteria for accessing the loan to ensure geographical spread.
However, Senator Jibrin Isah (Kogi East) said since the DBN was not wholly owned by the Nigerian government, it could not unilaterally review the criteria. He added that the international lenders like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have shares in the bank collectively set the criteria, which he said was necessary to protect their investments.
Senator Isah urged the Nigerian enterprises who could not meet the criteria for DBN loan to approach Nigerian fully-owned intervention banks like Bank of Industry and Bank of Agriculture for loan.
The Senate, after the debate, set up an ad hoc committee to carry out holistic investigation into the loan disbursement by DBN and report back to plenary in four weeks.
The seven- man panel is chaired by the former Governor of Ebonyi Dave Umahi. Other committee members are: Babangida Oseni, Ali Ndume, Banigo Ipalibo, Sani Musa, Chizoba Chukwu, and Adetokunbo Abiru.
Meanwhile, the Senate is set to launched an investigation into the allegations of bribery and corruption levelled against officials of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) at various universities across the federation. This was sequel to a motion by Senator Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah (Anambra South).
You may recall that, IPPIS was introduced in 2007 to administer monthly payroll of federal government’s workers in a manner to guarantee confidence in staff emoluments.
Senator Ubah noted that since the introduction of IPPIS, over two million federal government employees across 696 ministries, departments and agencies, including some staff of federal government-owned universities and other tertiary institutions, have been reportedly captured on the IPPIS platform.
He noted that the use of IPPIS for storage of personnel records and management of staff payroll in federal government-owned universities was a thorny issue between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He further said that while the federal government insisted that IPPIS remains the best personnel records and payroll management system to be used for storage of records and management of payroll of university staff, ASUU took a different position, recommending the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as an alternative that is most suitable for universities particularly.
The senator said, “While the Federal Government and ASUU were unable to reach an agreement regarding which of the two payment platforms to be adopted for management of university staff payroll, recent allegations of bribery, corruption and delayed capturing and payment of some university staff recruited as far back as in 2020 through the IPPIS has called for urgent investigation of those irregularities because of untold hardship caused to affected university staff and their families.
“In many federal government universities, staff employed as far back as 2020 are yet to be captured on the IPPIS platform and therefore are not being paid their salaries since they were recruited about three years ago.
“Some of the affected staff cutting across many universities have been alleged to bribe IPPIS officials for the purpose of getting captured on the platform.
“The allegations of bribery, corruption, delayed capturing and payment of salaries of newly recruited staff of federal government-owned universities have cast serious doubt on the credibility and suitability of IPPIS as a platform for managing the payroll of university staff as institutions clothed with autonomy for the purposes of teaching, learning and research.”
The Senate, after debate, resolved to investigate the allegations of bribery and corruption against IPPIS officials at various universities across the federation.
The probe, it said, would also include delayed capturing and payment of staff of federal government-owned universities as well as the status of the disagreement between the federal government and ASUU on the use of either IPPIS or UTAS as the preferred payment platform for Nigerian university staff.
The Senate said the investigation would be carried out by its Committee on Tertiary Institutions when constituted.
