Reps approve Bill to reduce Sanusi's powers

The House of Representatives has backed moves by the Senate to reduce the powers of the governor and board of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

A Bill that proposes to disqualify the CBN governor as the chairman of the bank’s board, and that will also bar the bank’s deputy governors and directors from being appointed members of the CBN board, passed the second reading on Wednesday.


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It came a week after the Senate overwhelmingly pushed the amendment through a second reading.

When given a third reading and a Presidential approval, the Bill will also compel the bank to submit its annual budgets for National Assembly, a touchy procedure that has pitched the bank against federal lawmakers in the past.

While the bank counts on the CBN Act, signed into law in May 2007, in defending its policy of spending without the National Assembly appropriation, the lawmakers cite the July 2007 Fiscal Responsibility Act, mandating all corporations and government run institutions to table their budgets before the legislature.

The bank’s expenditures are approved by its board, constituted by the directors and the deputy governors, with the governor as the chairman.

 Lawmakers say withholding the budget has fuelled reckless spending by the bank, and want the law overturned.

The new Bill, when passed, will seek the appointment of a person other than the governor of the central bank, as the chairman of the board of the bank, exclude deputy governors and directors as members of the board, and strip the bank the powers to appropriate its budgets.
Culled:dailytimesnigeria