The Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance, and other Financial Institutions, says it will "surely investigate" the allegation that Nigerian officials shared about 750 million Naira in bribe money from the Australian polymer company, Securency, to secure the contract to supply the polymer notes to the Nigerian government.
Speaking to NEXT through its chairperson, Nkechi Nwaogu, on her way to Switzerland for an international parliamentary meeting, in Abuja, the committee said "the allegations are very grave and disturbing, needing to be thoroughly investigated because it doesn't do us all well."
Mrs. Nwaogu said she, and her committee members, got to know about the the story after NEXT published the scandal that Securency, a joint venture company between the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and Innovia Films, paid out money in bribe between 2006 and 2008, to some Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staff officials and other influential Nigerians, using two UK-based businessmen, Benoy Berry and Michael Harvey.
Mrs. Nwaogu expects the senate investigations to commence after it resumes from recess next week.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, said last week that it had commenced investigation into the polymer note scandal. Inside sources at the anti-graft agency confided in NEXT that the agency had begun inquiring into the deal that helped Securency win a contract to supply at least 1.9 billion pieces of its patented product, Guardian®, on which four of Nigeria's bank notes are printed.
"We are looking into it. We are trying to get facts and documents on the matter. If you have any, you can send it to us," the official who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
However, the spokesperson of the EFCC, Femi Babafemi, declined to go into the details of the investigation. "It is attracting our attention," was all Mr. Babafemi said.
Nevertheless in Abuja, investigators told NEXT that they have "fairly adequate takeoff intelligence packages" to start out what they called "a good sense investigation."
Law enforcement insiders interpreted this as an indication that basic information on money movement, personalities involved, and a pattern of relationship have emerged from existing data to provide a reasonable basis for investigators to trigger their searchlight into the scandal.
Last Tuesday, forty seven members of the House of Representatives, led by Halims Agoda, co-sponsored a motion asking the House Banking and Currency committee to act with the Justice committee and determine the roles played by the previous leadership of the CBN and other regulatory authorities to probe the bank notes scandal.
Mr. Agoda, reading out the resolution, said: "The committees are mandated to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the widely reported claims by the local and international media that a company, Securency, is believed to have paid millions of dollars in bribe money to Nigerian officials to secure the contract to print Nigeria's new bank notes."
In a statement signed by Dom Obiekie, legal assistant to the Soludo Campaign Organisation, Mr. Soludo reportedly said he was ready to answer any charges related to his tenure at the CBN.
"Soludo remains ready to answer any questions on any aspects of his stewardship at the Central Bank of Nigeria," Mr. Obiekie statement said.
The N20 polymer note was launched in February 2007. On Wednesday September
30, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, launched the new N5, N10, and N50 polymer bank notes.
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