The Senate has faulted the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over its role in the alleged mismanagement of N120 billion released to the aviation sector out of the N500 billion intervention fund by the Federal Government in 2011.
A probe by Senate Committee on Aviation and Anti-Corruption alleged that N120 billion allocated to the aviation sector as bailout, from the entire N500 billion intervention fund, was mismanaged.
However, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, told the committee that his ministry and agencies under it were not aware of the fund.
On his part, the CBN representative said out of the N120 billion intervention fund injected into the sector, only N39.5 billion had been recovered while the balance of N81.2 billion was still outstanding.
He admitted that some of the 10 Airlines that benefitted from the fund were now moribund. He said this was against the objective of the fund. The moribund airlines include AirNigeria and Chanchangi Airlines, while Arik, Dana, Aero, Kabo, Overland, First Nation, Odenegene are the ones still in operation on the strength of the fund.
When probed on why two out of the 10 airlines folded up despite the intervention fund, he said responsibility for monitoring the implementation of the fund was given to Bank of Industry, BoI, being the facilitator of the loans.
