President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday said that the Federal Government had commenced a comprehensive forensic audit of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as part of its current efforts to improve the transparency of the nation’s monetary policy regime and efficiency of the public finance system.
The President, who made this remark when the President of the World Bank, Mr. Ajay Banga, met him on Friday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also spoke on plans by the government to conduct a thorough overhaul of the civil service payroll and other measures aimed at ameliorating the hardships of the citizenry following the recently initiated fiscal and monetary policy reforms.
He said: “A comprehensive forensic audit is on-going at the Central Bank. We are going to do very serious structural review of the Civil Service payroll. I can’t believe in the numbers I’m seeing and I’ve had that experience before at the state level.
”The reforms are in tandem with Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business programme. We’ll block all financial loopholes. The reforms will be targeted at the way we work, change of attitude and equally on educating our people. It’s costly but we will do it”, Tinubu added.
Speaking on Nigeria’s resilience and intellectual resourcefulness of her teeming population, the president urged the development finance bank to see Nigeria as a key player in the global economic space and not just as a struggling economy due to current challenges.
According to him, Nigeria remains a vibrant and educated society seeking to avert chaos through strategic interventions and the World Bank’s engagement aligns with the government’s quest for partnership needed to achieve mutual benefits that enrich all.
Tinubu, therefore, solicited the Breton Woods institution’s support for his administration in addressing the challenges posed by the removal of cross-sectoral subsidies, especially in alleviating the negative impacts on less privileged Nigerians.
In his remarks, Banga commended President Tinubu for his efforts in frontally tackling the nation’s multi-pronged economic challenges and promised the readiness of the bank to support the Nigerian government in its reform initiatives.
He assured: ”Yes, we give money and our dollars are very important but where we are really helpful is our expertise and knowledge and our experience from many markets. In that way, we will always be your friend and partner, not just with the money, but with our minds and our hearts and you should be rest assured about that.”
