Life support to FG: CBN denies borrowing FG N8.12trn

…Says news report on its finances mischievous

Mathew Dadiya

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has denied a news report published by a national daily (not The Daily Times) that the CBN’s life support to FG rises 780 per cent to N8.12 trillion in four years.

While reacting to the news report on Wednesday, Director of Corporate Communications of the central bank, Isaac Okorafor, described it as “not only false but an attempt, through sheer mischief, to distort and misrepresent CBN’s financial operations and also to misinform the investing public on the financial health of our country.”

Okorafor said that in order to arrive at their plot, the authors of the story had “conveniently restricted their report” only to CBN’s claims on the Federal Government while ignoring other numerous deposits of the Federal Government, including those of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), with the CBN.

He said, “As can be clearly deduced by any unbiased and informed analyst, when the claims of the FG on CBN are netted against the claims of the CBN on the FG, the resulting net positions indicate that the FG was actually the net creditor to CBN in 2014, 2015 and 2017 to the tune of N2.14 trillion, N1.65 trillion and N0.36 trillion, respectively.”

On the other hand, he stated that CBN was the net creditor to the FG in 2016 and 2018 to the tune of N0.11 trillion and N0.34 trillion, respectively.

Clarifying further, the apex bank spokesman said that from the foregoing and the detailed database, it is clearly inappropriate to compare the position as at end-2018 with the position as at end-2014, ignoring the movements within the period.

The CBN, however, reassured the investing community and the general public that it remains faithful to its statutory mandate as a banker and financial adviser to the Federal Government.