House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency has commenced an inspection of capital projects of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

Members of the Committee, led by its chairman, Hon. Jones Chukwudi Onyereri, visited the new CBN office, which is under construction. The team was received and conducted round the new office by the Project Coordinator, CBN, Lagos, Mr. B.O. Idowu

Explaining the purpose of the visit, Onyereri said, “Members are on a tour of all the agencies that we have oversight function on. What we are trying to do basically is to go to the branches and find out how your working environment is the challenges that you have in your branches and also to know how efficient or otherwise your members of staff are.

“Basically, we believe that most of the output from the head office would be an aggregate of whatever input they get from the branches. If the branches are well run, then you will expect that naturally, whatever decisions that they make from the head office, would be something that would strengthen the institution.

“Beyond all that, we are also going to look at your capital projects because funds have been allocated to these projects, and these funds are public funds. Therefore, it is within our purview to make sure that money that has been allocated for these projects are well utilised,” he said.

Idowu said the new building will comprise a total of twenty two stories with nineteen floors and three executive offices.

He said the old CBN office in Lagos is over 50 years old and controls over 1,000 Bureau De Changes, BDCs, from the initial 85 BDCs, unlike the other apex bank’s branches.