The Managing Director of Wema Bank PLC., Moruf Oseni is in big trouble.
Sources squealed to us that Oseni and other senior officials of Wema Bank could be invited any time soon by Mr. Jim Obazee who was appointed as the Special investigator to probe the activities of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and its entities over the management of the intervention funds released to the bank by CBN.
We gathered the development is causing trouble at Wema Bank’s headquarters in Lagos.
Our source told us that the executives of Wema Bank will be invited for questioning over N1.27 trillion undisbursed intervention funds in which Wema Bank was mentioned.
According to sources the move is to ascertain any discrepancies around the management of the intervention funds by Wema Bank.
This is coming after the team investigating the CBN reportedly discovered discrepancies and irregularities in the financial accounts.
In August, the CBN released its financial accounts for the years 2016 to 2022 amid an ongoing probe of the financial services sector regulator by a special investigator appointed by President Bola Tinubu.
For those who don’t know, Tinubu on July 28 appointed Jim Obazee, a former Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (RCN) as special investigator to probe the activities of the CBN under the suspended governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Meanwhile, the secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, said the Federal Government would soon unveil the audit report of the probe of the CBN.
We learnt that Wema Bank and its officials could be punished if found culpable.
Sources said about nine banks have at least N208.33 billion undisbursed funds from the CBN for the Anchor Borrower Fund and the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme at little interest rates.
However, according to the first half financial statements released to the Nigerian Exchange Limited, Wema Bank claimed that it had N848.23 million of the AB Fund in its coffers from N1.96 billion signifying that it had disbursed N846.26billion between January and June 2023.
For those who don’t know, the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme was established by the CBN in line with its developmental function. It was launched by former President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015, to create a link between anchor companies involved in the processing and smallholder farmers of key agricultural commodities.
The CACS is a scheme powered by the CBN in collaboration with the Federal Government represented by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with the aim of providing concessionary funding for agriculture so as to promote commercial agricultural enterprises in Nigeria.
So far, there have been controversies over the beneficiaries and repayments of the ABP fund.