A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ayo Omidiran has alleged that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been shortchanging the three tiers of government in the country by illegally diverting funds from the federation account.
The lawmaker who brought up the matter made this known at plenary under matters of urgent national importance on Wednesday.
She reiterated that the federation account was jointly owned by the three tiers and managed by the CBN on their behalf.
However, she said that the bank as custodians of the funds had been taking under advantage of the three tiers.
Omodiran (APC – Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan constituency of Osun state) accused the apex bank of maintaining secret accounts not known to the tiers of government which it has been using to siphon funds to the tune of $5 billion.
The “funds are remitted , hidden, diverted and spent without authorisation . ”
She noted that the money if recovered could be used to finance the budget and make great impact on the economy of the nation.
Giving figures of our funds were moved, she said the bank moved $339 million in 2014, $446.3 million and another $1.3 billion in 2015, $1.6 billion in March 2016, to a secret account.
She added that there were more cases like that, and urged the House to investigate the matter.
In a resolution passed, the House set up an ad hoc committee to investigate several cases of alleged non-remittances and under-remittances of revenue to the federation account by the bank.