FEMI FALANA TO PMB

Human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana,
SAN has threatened legal action against
the Federal Government if it make good
its plan to borrow loan to finance the
2016 budget.
In a letter to the minister of finance,
Falana argued that rather than borrowing
fresh loan, government should strive to
recover debts owed it by different groups
and institutions.
According to him, it was real that the
government has decided to apply for a
loan of $2.5 billion from the World Bank
and $1 billion from the African
Development Bank for the purpose of
financing the 2016 Budget, in spite of its
debt profile of $64 billion.
Urging the government to desist from
taken the loans, Falana asked that it
embarks on the immediate recovery of
outstanding loans and accrued revenues
payable to the federation account. He
maintained that going for the loans will
further burdened Nigerians.
The lawyer disclosed that from records,
the Federal Government is owed nothing
less than $66.5 billion which ought to be
recovered without any further delay.
He listed the recoverable debts to include
“the potential recoverable revenues
payable to the Federation Account are
not less than $20,221,018,007.00 (Twenty
billion, two hundred and twenty one
million, eighteen thousand, and seven
hundered dollars only).”
The debts were said to have arisen from
“underpayment/underassessment of
taxes, royalties, levies and rents,”
according to five cycles of independent
audit reports compiled by the National
Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (NEITI).
Beside, Falana, noted that on October 4,
2006, the Central Bank of Nigeria
apportioned $7 billion to 14 Nigerian
banks to “manage” out of the nation’s
external reserves, which stood at $38.07
billion, as at the end of July, 2006.
According to him, “the amount involved
represented 18.39 per cent of the total
external reserves at the material time. In
addition, following the crisis of global
capitalism, which occurred in 2008, the
Central Bank of Nigeria gave a bailout of
$4 billion (N600 billion) to the commercial
banks in the country.
“The CBN has not deemed it fit to ask for
the refund of the total sum of $11 billion
injected into the banking system in the
space of two years.”

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