Nigeria’s Financial Crisis Deepens as Tinubu and Team Divert 15% Wheat Grain Levy to Fund UNGA
It is apparently not a joke that the United Nations General Assembly UNGA meeting in New York embarked on in September by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his team cost $422,820,00 for hotel reservations alone.
While the funds for the hotel reservations were nowhere to be found, 15% Wheat Grain Levy Pool Account was diverted to pay for the hotel bill.
For the records, the 15% Wheat Grain Levy Pool Account is an account opened in 2012 to hold receipts of a new 15% wheat import levy imposed by the Jonathan administration to discourage wheat importation and encourage local production of cassava flour.
The issue on ground is not just the humongous amount of money expended on the trip of the President and his team, but the non availability of such foreign currency in the treasury.
Documents available below show that on September 11 State House Abuja applied for the funds and on September 12 it was approved.
Recall that two days ago, as one of the ways to mitigate the consequences of the termination of the petrol subsidy on Nigerians, the Federal Government applied to the World Bank for a new loan of $400 million for the conditional cash transfer to 15 million households.
The Federal Government is borrowing $1.2 billion from the World Bank for the cash transfer, an increase of $400 million over the $800 million loan it previously obtained for the same purpose.
It takes an insurgent whistleblower like @PIDOMNIGERIA for Nigerians to know that the 15% Wheat Grain Levy Pool Account – an account opened in 2012 to hold receipts of a new 15% wheat import levy imposed by the Jonathan administration to discourage wheat importation and encourage local production of cassava flour (nigerianseminarsandtrainings.com/articlespg/40-…) – is now being used to fund $507,000 worth of hotel rooms, strippers, alcohol and shopping trips in New York by Bola Tinubu and his team.
