Lamido Sanusi insists on his ‘unpleasant truth’ before Reps

 Deputy governor of CBN (Financial System Stability), Kingsley Moghalu (L), with, Mr Sanusi

The Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, on Tuesday, stuck to his “unpleasant truth” about the actual percentage of the national overhead cost allocated to the National Assembly. Mr. Sanusi stood his ground when he appeared before a selected committee of the House of Representatives, led by the Minority Leader, Ali Ndume.

 

Although the Tuesday session with the members was more civil, and devoid of the altercations witnessed during the Senate’s session last week with the CBN governor, both Mr. Sanusi and the House of Reps members bandied three conflicting figures during session.

While the members based their arguments on the figures in the 2010 budget to arrive at 9% and 3%, the CBN governor insisted on the 25.4% based on figures from the budget office, certified by the presidency.

“I remain convinced that the figures I used based on the most authentic official source that I have, are correct,” Mr. Sanusi who was armed with detailed slides said.

Mr. Ndume, who led the interrogating members, however, said they did not convene the session to pass blame but to make clarifications.

Unpleasant truth

Mr. Sanusi insisted that even though it is the unpleasant truth, the figures he used in his computations were the actual, but not budgeted figures, and that he had no reason to malign the lawmakers.

“The truth might be unpleasant, but that should not be taken either as an insult or an attack, and it should actually not lead to any kind of confrontation between the CBN and any arm of government...

“But there are times where we have to say things that people do not find pleasant,” he said. He gave an instance a few months ago where the headline of a story in a national newspaper quoted the CBN governor has saying Nigeria is pursuing wrong economic policies.

“The president called me. He said this is the headline in the papers, that you said the federal government is pursuing the wrong economic policies and you are the CBN governor. Were you misquoted or misrepresented?

“I said no, I said it. I said that no matter what we do to our banking, if we do not fix the power sector, Nigeria’s economic problems will still persist. And the president said I agree with you.

“Anytime we talk and people are not happy , they take it like an attempt to bring them down, undermine them, or to attack democracy. What happens is that other public officers who have this responsibility then decides that for fear of being misrepresented or misinterpreted, he will not speak up, and that is what will undermine the very structures we are putting in place,” said Mr. Sanusi.

High recurrent expenditure

Although the two parties disagreed on the overhead allocations to the National Assembly, the members agreed with Mr. Sanusi that the nation might soon be plunged into an overwhelming debt as it is spending much on recurrent expenditure and giving less to capital expenditures that actually drive the economy.

They agreed with the CBN governor that the nation has consistently spent less on capital projects, while borrowing more.

“We in the National Assembly, especially the House of Representatives, have been saying the same thing you said since the last two years,” Ayo Adeseun, chairman, house committee on appropriation, said.

 Source:234next.com