The meeting of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Managing Directors of banks on the January 31 deadline for edging out of old naira notes on Wednesday was stalled due to the late delivery of invitation letters to the institutions.
The chairman of the committee and majority leader of the House, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa made this known at the resumed meeting of committee at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja on Wednesday.
The House at plenary on Tuesday in addition to asking CBN to extend the deadline by six months set the ad-hoc committee to meet with both the apex bank and commercial banks over scarcity of the redesigned N1000, N500 and N200 notes.
Doguwa informed members of the committee that a communication received from the CBN liaison officer to National Assembly indicated that due to the late arrival of the letter, the bureaucracy could not work on it.
The majority leader said the meeting with the apex bank had been rescheduled for Thursday by 1pm, after which the panel would later meet with the Bank executives.
He said: “This is the House Adhoc Committee to interface with the CBN and the bank operators with regards to resolving the issue of the phasing out strategy of the old naira notes and to bring in to circulation the new naira notes among other reasons.
“We also have other factors that we have discussed on the floor of the House yesterday and ultimately the House mandated this Adhoc Committee to come up with a strategy to engage the officials of the CBN and CEOs of the commercial banks.
“It is therefore my pleasure to at this point inform members of the committee, first of all, that we scheduled today’s meeting based on the letter we have signed out only with officials of the CBN and we have scheduled bank operators to come up tomorrow.
“So, it is like we ab initio invited them separately based on the nature of the engagement. It is a fact finding thing and like I always say, this is not something to witch hunt anyone. It is a simple fact finding mission by the parliament which obviously holds the proxy of the Nigerian people. So, we decided to take them separately.
“We have scheduled today for the officials of the CBN and tomorrow for the bank operators and CEOs of commercial banks and on that note, I would like to communicate with members of the public that based on communication I just received CBN, it is that our letter of invitation got to the bank very late yesterday.
“You can all agree with me that the resolution was taken at the end of our sitting yesterday, 24th January 2023 and before we could finish necessary procedures, the letters were sent to the CBN late. So, the liaison officer of the bank spoke to us this evening that they were not able to really act on the letter to allow for their engagement today.
“On this note, I would like to convey to this committee and members of the public and the press here with us that we have conceded to allow the CBN officials to come tomorrow by 1pm so that we would engage them and immediately after the engagement with them we would engage the bank operators.”
Doguwa also warned the banks against boycotting the meeting, stressing that the summons of the House must be taken very seriously.
The committee’s chairman added that no unpopular policies hampering the economy of the country and affecting the people negatively will be allowed to sail through.
He said: “For the purposes of clarification, I want to say without any fear of contradiction that the parliament is always an institution that represents the Nigerian people
“When there is any need it calls for an invitation to any government employee, like it is the case here with the CBN, the governor of the CBN, his directors, deputy directors, all departmental heads, I believe our own employees, the Nigerian people, and when there is a kind of summon from the institution of the parliament like this, we expect every up and doing employee to only respect that invitation.
“I want to say on behalf of the House of Representatives that we have taken this from the point of perhaps giving them the leverage or benefit of doubt that yes, the letter got to them late yesterday and on no account, I repeat, we would have a repeat of this failure tomorrow.
“None of us here is acting in his personal capacity. None of us here is acting for any personal reasons especially on a matter like this where Nigerian people and economy is threatened by a lot of dangers by the policy of a government department.
“Those of here working who are working for the Nigerian people, we cannot sit down here and watch policies of government that are not unpopular, threatening the survival of our economy to continue. I hear some of them saying it is a matter they have decided.
“It is a matter that no one goes back about it. This is the supreme institution of Nigeria’s democracy and I want to say without any fear of contradiction that for whatever policy government is undertaking especially at the critical period like this, Nigerians must know and whoever is involved must know that definitely the interest of the Nigerian people holds sway.
“So, there is no policy whatsoever that cannot be reversed, good or bad as long as that policy or the reversal of that policy is going to be in the overall interest of Nigerians.
“We would not endanger our economy. We would also not allow anybody to endanger our economy. CBN must appear before this committee of the House of Representatives tomorrow by 1pm to discuss this very critical matter.
“It borders on the survival of our economy and our people, the businesses are shut down all over. Agriculture is suffering. petty businesses in the villages are also suffering. I understand that in some place that even dowry, bride price is not being accepted. So, this is a serious issue.”