Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Has Been Exposed

Okonjo -Iweala’s hidden figuresThe country’s sordid economic realities should be an embarrassment to any finance minister and an international bureaucrat in the mould of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole feels the former World Bank Managing Director has a lot of explanations to make as Coordinating Minister under whose watch the economy “collapsed”.

AS the country transits from one democratic dispensation to another, there is no gainsaying that the state of the nation’s economy is the focal point, especially with the unending fuel scarcity which is gradually grinding the nation to a halt.

No doubt, the best person to explain the state of the economy today is
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy (CME), whose management of the nation’s resources, in these past four years, has elicited different reactions from Nigerians.

As a member of the National Economic Council (NEC), I had spoken out at different times at NEC meetings and even in public on the way the economy is managed under Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. Again, I want to share my views with the public on some of the issues affecting the nation.

Recently, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, as the CME, has been all over the place, pointing in the wrong directions and blaming everybody but herself for the parlous state of the economy. Coming after her deafening silence on the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) crude oil sales and receipts, which revealed massive abuse of public trust and stealing of our common patrimony in high places under her watch and the government she serves. It is quite intriguing that with barely few days left in office, she has suddenly woken up from her slumber to realise that oil marketers have been all along falsifying subsidy claims and defrauding the nation of billions of naira and dollars.

This latter day “policy activism” on her part deserves closer scrutiny and interrogation. Perhaps for fear of the incoming President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, come tomorrow, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala is now compelled to disclose to Nigerians that a cabal is holding the country and the government to ransom. Beside the abuse of the subsidy regime, we will insist that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala also comes clean on some other critical issues that demand accountability from her and her office.

According to the minister, after paying N156 billion to the oil marketers, the marketers came with another claim of N200 billion, which includes a N159 billion coming not from actual supply of fuel but from exchange rate differentials. This resulted in a prolonged bickering that led to the current nation-wide fuel scarcity and total black-out.

The question to ask is: how come that it is now, for the first time, that we are hearing from the CME about fraudulent claims by the oil marketers amounting to billions of naira? At what point did the CME realise that these fraudulent and similar claims are going on? When did it start? Is it just recently or it has been going on all along? These questions are pertinent because we know that if the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) were doing its work diligently, all claims by oil marketers would be vetted on a daily basis before their payments are processed by the Ministry of Finance. Hence, there should be no dispute about the amount due to oil marketers at any point in time.

What the foregoing, therefore, suggests is that all along, the PPPRA, the Ministry of Finance and the oil marketers have been involved in an unholy alliance, in the mismanagement of the fuel subsidy regime and in the process defrauding the nation of its revenues.

The Minister of Finance cannot stop at simply shedding crocodile tears about fraudulent claims by oil marketers. Having found her voice, thanks to the fear of Gen. Buhari, it is very necessary that Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala takes one more crucial step at full disclosure. She must disclose to the natio