Ebun Francis|
Nigeria’s minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed on Tuesday told a gathering of the business community in Abuja that big businesses operating in the country take the Federal Government and stipulated regulations for granted.
The minister who made the disclosure during a session at the ongoing 24th Nigerian Economic Summit while responding to a question on the recent sanction that was imposed on MTN Nigeria by the Central Bank of Nigeria, said that the telecommunications firm only provided the information the CBN requested after it was sanctioned by the apex bank alongside other commercial banks.
Ahmed said, “The MTN incident was a very damaging one for us and that was one of the reasons why we have been out trying to engage our investors. But you see there is a tendency for big businesses to take regulation and government for granted.
“Only after that incident happened, all of the information that the CBN had been trying to get for months actually came out. Now, I think they are up to a point where they have almost solved the problem.
“And this is information that the CBN governor had personally met with MTN, with the key banks involved and had asked them to provide the information,”
According to the minister, the information that was being requested for by the CBN from MTN and the banks had to do with an audit that took place over a period of two years.
She continued, “It was an audit that took place over the course of two and a half years and the auditors were not satisfied with some of the information.
“They queried and they asked for additional information. Unfortunately, this was negative for us but is now being sorted out and we are bearing the cost of it. We have been engaging investors and trying to explain what is happening.”
On whether another company will so sanctioned in future, the minister stated that efforts are being made to ensure that such development is prevented.
Ahmed said, “We are trying to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We are continuously discussing with the regulatory authorities and there will be no company next after MTN. Nobody is next because we just can’t afford this kind of incidence to happen.”
It will be recalled that the CBN in August this year, imposed heavy fines totalling N5.87bn on four banks under its regulatory purview for alleged illegal funds repatriation.
It also directed the management of the banks and MTN Nigeria Communications Limited to immediately refund to the apex bank $8,134,312,397.63, which was said to have been illegally repatriated by the company.
The four banks that came under the sledge hammer of the CBN for the violations were, Diamond bank, Stanbic-IBTC, Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank.