CBN Owes JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs $7.5bn, Releases Financial Statements Amid Probe

The financial regulator has made available seven years’ worth of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) financial statements during an examination of the institution’s operations.

Following Godwin Emefiele’s appointment as governor of the top bank in 2016, the CBN ceased publishing its report, a move that generated criticism and cast doubt on the organization’s transparency.

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The CBN’s most recent annual financial statement to be made public was for the year 2015; nevertheless, on Thursday, the CBN disclosed its profits records for the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

According to the CBN’s financial statement for 2022, profit after tax increased 38.16 percent annually from N75.13 billion in 2021 to N103.8 billion.

Also, the CBN reported in its financial report from last year that it owes JP Morgan $7 billion after swapping its foreign securities for cash and that it owes Goldman Sachs $500 million in debt.

“The Group and Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan engaged into a securities loan agreement. The Group pledged its holdings on foreign securities as part of the deal in exchange for money. “The cash collected from JP Morgan is N3.23tn ($7bn), 2021: N3.05tn ($7bn), and Goldman Sachs is N0.23tn ($500m), 2021: N0.22tn ($500m), according to the report.

The figures were made public since the CBN Act of 2007 was broken by withholding the earnings report during the previous seven years.

The statute governing the functioning of the CBN states: “The Bank shall present to the National Assembly and the President a copy of its annual accounts certified by the Auditor within two months after the close of each financial year.

“A report that must be submitted to the President and National Assembly must be issued by the Bank in accordance with the Governor’s instructions.

The Board is responsible for seeing that the accounts filed under this section are published in the Gazette as soon as feasible.

Recall that Jim Obazee was appointed by President Bola Tinubu as a Special Investigator to look into the CBN’s operations under Emefiele prior to the suspension of the top bank governor.

Obazee, a former executive director of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), is tasked with collaborating with law enforcement and providing Tinubu with a weekly update on his inquiry.

Also, President Tinubu suspended Emefiele, who is currently in the care of the Department of State Services (DSS), and appointed Folashodun Shonubi as acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.