The Senate has indicted the Bank of Agriculture in Kaduna for allegedly disbursing N3.2 billion as loan to 10 vendors for the purpose of purchasing tractors and other equipment.

They were meant to be allocated to the end users.

The indictment was sequel to the 2016 report of Auditor General of the Federation, which was scrutinised and considered by the Senate Public Accounts Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Uhroghide.

The Committee indicted the management of the bank for being unable to account for N3.2 billion disbursed to 10 vendors out of the N3.6 billion provided for in the 2015 fiscal budget of the federal government through the bank.

It was gathered that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture selected the 10 unnamed vendors for the management of the Bank of Agriculture which thereafter disbursed the N3.2 billion.

The loan has four years expiry date.

The Senate, after adopting the report of the Committee demanded the recovery of the N3.2 billion from the 10 unnamed vendors.

Part of the audit query read: “The sum of N3,200,592,007.00 was disbursed out of the N3,600,000,000.00 provided between 24th March, 2015 and 17th November 2015, by the federal government through the Bank to 10 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 mechanisation 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.”

However, in response, the Bank of Agriculture forwarded a written response to the Senate panel which was not accepted.

Part of the Bank’s written response read, “Programme was structured with a four year loan tenor commencing from the date of release of the machinery/equipment to the Centre.

“Since the machinery/equipment were not released on the same day, the expiry dates of the machinery loans also vary” (Text, excluding headline: THISDAY)

Update news