Reps summon Emefiele, Mint ex-MDs over accounts, board

TRACKING____The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has summoned the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and former managing directors of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Limited (NSPMC) over allegations that the Mint operated for eight years without audited accounts and a management board.

The summons was issued yesterday after the lawmakers found out from the current chief executive of the NSPMC, Abbas Masanawa, that the agency had been running without a board since 2012 with its accounts unaudited too.

Represented by the Director of Finance, Augustine Omotoso, during a meeting with the panel in Abuja, the NSPMC henchman made the disclosure to the legislators who were investigating the expenditure profiles of over 300 agencies of government.

In his presentation, he confessed that there was no financial audit of the agency since 2012, adding that a board was yet to be in place since he assumed office.

The CBN governor, is statutory, the chairman of the NSMPC board.

The NSMPC was jointly established in 1963 by the Federal Government and a British company. It has since printed currency notes for the expenditure of the federation.

The privatisation of the Mint by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in February 2002 was controversial, and its Managing Director, Sambo Dasuki, resigned in protest.

In 2006, erstwhile CBN Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo regretted that Nigeria was the only country in the world that had a mint but still imported currency, announcing plans by the government to privatise the company.

Besides, the investigating committee has set up an inquiry into the project performance and expenditure of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State since 2010 when it came on stream.

Its Managing Director, Simbi Wabote, also confessed to the panel that there was no properly constituted board for his agency.

He assumed office on December 12, 2016.