The House of Representatives has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to immediately suspend the planned sale of Polaris Bank Plc.
This followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by Rep. Henry Nwauba (APGA-Imo) at the plenary on Wednesday.
The House said the sale should be suspended until the CBN deposit Insurance Corporation and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria conclude all processes for open, transparent, and competitive bid process.
This, the House said, should be in line with best practice and procedure for divestment of this nature.
Nwauba had earlier said public attention had been drawn through a circulation currently on social media in respect of the proposed sale of Polaris Bank for N40 billion.
He said that there was need to ensure that the divestment in the bank did not jeopardise the core reason for the CBN’s intervention in the bank in the overall public interest.
The reps member added that the divestment should be done most transparently, following due process adding that this was necessary to avert public outcry and untoward reaction from critical stakeholders in the economy, foreign business partners, the banking community, depositors and correspondent banks and also to avoid the shortcomings of previous similar exercise undertaken in the past.
Nwauba recalled that that Polaris Bank was born out of the bailout of the defunct Skye bank Plc that failed due to poor corporate governance and non-performing loan and thatbclose to a trillion Naira of public fund was committed to resuscitating the bank, and wondered why the proposed sale was shrouded In secrecy and was opacity.
The House therefore set up an Ad hoc Committee to within 20 days, review the total outlay by the Federal Government of Nigeria in Polaris Bank and account for the entire financial input in the bank by the Federal Government.
The House said this should be done through CBN, NDIC and AMCON to determine whether the conditions and terms of sale were likely to ensure positive return on public funds thus far committed to the bank, whether as bailout funds or other investments.
The House also urged the committee to take action necessary to ensure that the public funds committed to Polaris Bank were appropriately documented and accounted for.
