Financial Giant, HSBC continues to be at the receiving end of a backlash from various sections of the Nigerian Government and its agencies following its prediction that Nigeria’s economic woes will not come to an end anytime soon if incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari wins a second term in office.
The latest salvo comes from Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption Agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission who lambasted HSBC Bank on social media days after the financial giant’s prediction.
The EFCC posted on its official instagram account; @officialefcc, that Europe’s largest multinational banking group, by total asset, was synonymous with money laundering and it would do everything it could to ensure that it recovered funds supposedly stashed in the bank by Nigeria’s late Dictator, General Sani Abacha.
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Africa’s no 1 Anti-corruption Agency issued a post titled ‘The Story of HSBC’. In the post, the anti-graft agency accused HSBC of helping the late dictator launder over $100m and went ahead to lists bank account numbers as well amounts allegedly contained therein.
Excerpts from the post reads;
“The HSBC bank is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world. The HSBC’s international network comprises around 7, 500 offices in over 80 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.
Since inception, HSBC is synonymous with money laundering and has paid billions of US dollars in fines across the world.
In Nigeria the bank laundered more than $100m for the late dictator, General Sani Abacha, in Jersey, Paris, London and Geneva. The bank is also involved with laundering proceeds of corruption for over 50 Nigerians including a serving Nigerian senator.
Part of Abacha’s assets yet to be recovered are: $12m in HSBC Fund Admin Ltd with account number S-104460 in Jersey; $20m in HSBC Life (Europe) with account number 37060762 in the UK and $1.6m in HSBC Bank Plc with account number 38175076 in the UK.
We shall not rest until every penny belonging to the Federal Republic of Nigeria is repatriated to Nigeria as to improve the lives of the people.”
The post was in response to a report issued last week by the Global Research Unit of HSBC entitled, ‘Nigeria, papering over the cracks’.
In that report, HSBC had reiterated that incumbent President Buhari’s approval ratings were at an all time low due to the impact of the recession the country recently emerged from as well as the economic hardship being experienced so far under the administration of the 78 year old triggered by increasing joblessness and sustained poverty.
HSBC was of the opinion that a second term for the current president “raises the risk of limited economic progress and further fiscal deterioration, prolonging the stagnation of his first term, particularly if there is no move towards completing reform of the exchange rate system or fiscal adjustments that diversify government revenues away from oil.”
HSBC further opined that although higher oil prices in the global, market has given a boost to Nigeria’s macro outlook, leading to increased export earnings, boosted the supply of foreign exchange, and supported naira stability; the fact that the Buhari administration had yet to address the economy’s structural shortcomings was signs of further stagnation as the country could easily slide back into a recession should oil prices tumble.
“Economic growth remains sluggish and reliant on the rebound in oil output while the non-oil economy, which accounts for about 90 per cent of GDP, continues to languish with many service sectors still mired in contraction.” It said.
The bank further reiterated that unemployment within the country increased exponentially, up almost three-fold in the last three years to 19 per cent in Q3 2017, thereby pushing the number in poverty to 87 million.
The report also revealed that most of the country’s revenue would go into debt servicing because it increasingly fails to address its reliance on oil revenue as well as inadequate non-oil tax collection.
The company further noted that while the Federal Government’s debt management strategy of issuing external debt to redeem more expensive short-term government securities is helping reduce debt service costs in the near term, it also “exposes the fiscal position to exchange rate risk in the event of a future decline in oil prices and naira devaluation.”
The bank had concluded that high oil prices had not translated into non-oil growth, further adding that;
“Nigeria’s reliance on fuel imports means rising international oil prices are pushing up the cost of fuel subsidies, estimated by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency $250m in May alone.”
The criticism of the HSBC by the EFCC comes less than 24 hours after the Presidency also lambasted HSBC, accusing it of benefitting from the corruption that plagued the country.
It is also worthy of note that President Buhari who served as the chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under General Abacha had said the late dictator was not corrupt.
The President’s recent criticism of Europe’s Financial giant however flies in the face of that assertion made by the President and will no doubt come with a backlash from civil society and opposition parties.