The Sorry Record of Finance Minister Madam Ngozi Iweala By Daily Trust

Last week Nigerians heard gloomy economic news from a most unlikely quarter. Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has been assuring us for years that our economy is well run and is in good shape despite international vicissitudes, is now singing a different tune. She said mid last week that in the face of dwindling oil revenues the Federal Government has borrowed N473billion to pay salaries and fund the 2015 budget.
The Minister, who was presenting details of the N4.493trillion appropriation bill recently passed by the National Assembly but yet to be signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan, said the federal government had to raise its borrowing level from N570 billion to N882 billion to enable it meet its financial obligations to workers and contractors. She blamed it on the decline in oil revenue, which she said accounted for a 50 per cent drop in total federally collectible revenue as well as low revenue receipts from non-oil sources. According to her, N380billion of the borrowing came from external sources while the balance was domestic borrowing.

Her revelation that the Federal Government has gone a-borrowing came on the same day that re-elected and incoming APC state governors told President-elect Muhammadu Buhari that state governments are increasingly unable to pay their workers’ salaries due to the perilous economic situation occasioned by declining statutory allocations from the Federation Account. Many states, they said, have not paid workers’ salaries for one or more months and they seemed to suggest that Buhari should work out a bail out for them when he takes over later this month. But given what the Finance Minister is now saying, the incoming president too will soon be hard put to pay Federal workers’ salaries.

This is not the tune that Nigerians were used to hearing from their all-powerful Coordinating Minister of the Economy, the first person ever to hold such a grandiose title side by side with the powerful Finance portfolio. At every turn since she took over her dual role four years ago Mrs Okonjo-Iweala had presented the economy under her watch in the rosiest terms. Attempts by critics over the years to question some official figures reeled out by the minister were always coldly rebuffed. She controversially “rebased” the economy and claimed that it is the largest one in Africa despite the stark reality of epileptic power supply, very high unemployment and grinding poverty which is the lot of millions of our countrymen.

Earlier this year when former Central Bank of Nigeria governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo said the economy under her watch was mismanaged and N30 trillion had disappeared into a sinkhole in five years, the Madam came out charging, saying Soludo was the worst CBN governor ever. Maybe he was but the charges he made sounded to most Nigerians to have a ring of truth. He said, among other things that the minister was busy introducing austerity measures and gradually immiserating Nigerians while hemorrhaging public finance as 30 trillion naira was missing or mismanaged during her tenure. This amount, Soludo said, “has either been stolen or lost or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under your watchful eyes in the past four years” mostly due to oil theft.

Not only Soludo but when then CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi alleged that nearly $20 billion in oil receipts were not accounted for by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] and other agencies, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala led the cavalry charge to dispute his claims. She claimed at a press conference that reconciled figures showed that the money was not missing. This prolonged cover up continued last year with the ordering of a so-called “forensic audit” of NNPC accounts by the accounting firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers. The report submitted by the firm was used for several months to claim that there were less than $2 billion in unremitted funds and that NNPC had been asked to remit them to the Federation Account. The Presidency never agreed to publish the report until it lost the last election and the President-elect began talking about looking at the report.

President Jonathan then ordered the report to be published but everything quickly unraveled as the “reputable” accounting firm distanced itself from the report, saying it carried out the forensic audit without seeing bank statements. To compound the tragedy, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala then said she had no hand in appointing the firm to carry out the audit in the first place. This affair conclusively proved one of Soludo’s charges against her that she is quick to claim credit for positive achievements and is equally quick to shift the blame to others when things go awry.

In short, after four years of managing Nigeria’s economy by this “wizard” she is about to hand over an economy that is in ruins, politely put. No one is blaming her for the collapse of oil prices in the international market but that after a cumulative 8 years as finance minister, public finance is so heavily dependent on oil that the Federal and state governments cannot pay their workers’ salaries says a lot about the quality of management she did. Imagine therefore Nigerians’ consternation when the minister recently tried to advise the incoming president on economic management. Speaking in Washington, DC she said Buhari should double VAT, diversify the economy and pass into law the Petroleum Industry Bill. She even advised the incoming regime “to reverse the ratio of crude oil-non oil contribution to revenue from 70%-30% in favour of oil to 70%-30% in favour of non-oil over the next 10 years.”

Madam, you were the Finance Minister for a cumulative seven years and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy for the last four. What the heck did you do to advance the economy towards this goal? You should please shut up and let others try their hands at economic management. They cannot possibly do worse than you did.