Senate has indicted the management of the Bank of Agriculture, BoI in Kaduna for not being able to account for N3.2 billion loan disbursed to 10 vendors out of N3.6 billion to purchase tractors and other equipment for allocation to end users.
The indictment was sequel to the 2016 report of Auditor General for the Federation, AuGF considered by the Senate Public Accounts Committee, SPAC chaired by Senator Mathew Uhroghide (PDP Edo South).
The Senate panel, during investigation, discovered that the management of BoI could not account for the whooping amount of money provided in 2015 by the federal government through the bank.
It was gathered that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development selected the 10 unnamed vendors for the bank’s management after which the N3.2 billion was disbursed.
The loan, according to the report, has four years expiring date.
The Senate after adoption of the report of the committee asked for the recovery of N3.2 billion from 10 unnamed vendors.
The query reads: “The sum of N3,200,592,007.00 (Three billion, two hundred million, five hundred and ninety-two thousand, seven naira) was disbursed out of N3,600,000,000.00 (Three billion, six hundred million naira) provided between 24th March, 2015 and 17th November 2015, by the Federal Government through the Bank to 10 (ten) vendors selected by the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase tractors and other equipment for allocation to end users.
“The beneficiaries were expected to make repayment through Service Provider Operators (SPOs) under a revolving fund arrangement with expected multiplication effect on the national agricultural mechanization agenda.
“The bank was to monitor and supervise the disbursement as well as ensure recovery of the funds for further lending to new participants. However, the entire revolving fund could not be accounted for by the bank‟s management.
“The Managing Director was communicated to account for all the amounts involved.”
But, the Bank of Agriculture in its written response which was not accepted by the committee said, “the programme was structured with a four (4) year loan tenor commencing from the date of release of the machinery/equipment to the AEHE Centre.”
“Since the machinery/equipment were not released on the same day, the expiry dates of the machinery loans also vary.”
