$2.1bn: I’m Ready For probe, Okonjo-Iweala Says

Former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo Iweala said she is ready and willing to answer any query against her on all issues under her purview during the last administration.. Responding to the allegation by some governors that she spent $2.1 billion out of the Excess Crude Account “without authorization” the former minister said the allegation was false, malicious and totally without foundation.In a statement yesterday by her special assistant on media, Mr Paul Nwabuike, the
minister said no unauthorized expenditure from the ECA was made under Okonjo-Iweala’s watch in the finance ministry. She said the decisions on such expenditure were discussed at meetings of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) attended by finance commissioners from the 36 states. “It is curious that in their desperation to use the esteemed National Economic Council for political and personal vendetta, the persons behind these allegations acted as if the constitutionally recognized FAAC, a potent expression of Nigeria’s fiscal federalism, does not exist,” she said.
Governor Adams Oshiomhole said Monday after the inauguration of the National Economic Council (NEC) by President Buhari that Okonjo-Iweala spent $2.1bn from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) without the approval of NEC. Oshiomhole said from the presentation by the Director of Funds in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation Mr M. K. Dikwa on the comprehensive management of the Federation Account, the NEC discovered that Okonjo-Iweala spent $2.1bn from the ECA without the council’s approval. He said after deliberations on ECA, the council resolved to constitute a four-man committee comprising the governors of Gombe, Kaduna, Edo and Akwa Ibom States to look at the management of the ECA/Federation Account and report back its recommendation to the council. “We looked at the numbers for the Excess crude account. The last time the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy reported to the council, and it is in the minute, she reported by November 2014 that we had $4.1 billion, but today (yesterday), the Accountant-General Office reported we’ve $2.0 billion which means the Honourable Minister spent $2.1bn without authority of the NEC. “And that money was not distributed to states, it was not paid to the three tiers of government. This is why the NEC has set up a panel to look at what accrued, what it was spent for, when and by whom so that Nigerians will have the full picture of all the transactions as regards the much talked about excess crude.''But the former minister said Nigerians know that collective revenues, allocations and expenditures of the three tiers of government are the concern of the monthly FAAC meetings.  She said it is important to acknowledge the efforts of governors who are working hard to overcome the current revenue challenges facing their states without resorting to character assassination and blame games. “But it is clear that this is the latest chapter of a political witch-hunt by elements who are attempting to use the respected National Economic Council for ignoble purposes having failed abysmally in their previous attempts to tar the Okonjo-Iweala name,” she said. “It will be recalled that one of such attempts took place in May when some of these governors, hiding under the auspices of the Nigerian Governors Forum asked Okonjo-Iweala to explain $20 billion alleged to be missing from the same ECA,” she added.