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| Adams Oshiomhole |
In a scathing treatise
a few days before the end of the Jonathan administration, Governor Adams
Oshiomhole of Edo State has accused the Coordinating Minister for the Economy
and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of gross mismanagement of the
nation’s economy in the last four years and feeding Nigerians with half-truths.
According to the
governor, in an article reviewing the nation’s economy in the last four years,
he alleged Okonjo-Iweala ran the Excess Crude Account (ECA) as if she was
running a one-man show, saying her recent outcry that oil marketers were
falsifying subsidy claims might have been done out of fear of the incoming
administration led by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.
In the article, the
governor said: “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 Okonjo-Iweala, the
Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, 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, 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 Nigerian nation.
“Recently,
Okonjo-Iweala has been all over the place, pointing at the wrong directions and
blaming everybody but herself for the parlous state of the Nigerian economy.
“Coming after her
deafening silence on the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit of NNPC’s 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 a 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.”
He noted that this
latter day “policy activism” on the part of the minister deserved closer
scrutiny and interrogation.
He posited that
perhaps for fear of the incoming president, come May 29, she was now being
compelled to disclose to Nigerians that a cabal is holding the country and the
government to ransom.
Besides the abuse of
the subsidy regime, Oshiomhole urged Nigerians to insist that Okonjo-Iweala
should come clean on some other critical issues that demand accountability from
her and her office.
“According to
Okonjo-Iweala, 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 prolonged bickering that led to the current nationwide fuel scarcity
and total blackout.
“The question to ask
is: how come that it is now, for the first time, that we are hearing from the
Minister of Finance about fraudulent claims by the oil marketers amounting to
billions of naira? At what point did the minister of finance and CME realise
that these fraudulent and similar claims were going on? When did it start? Was
it just recently or it has it been going on all along?
“These questions are
pertinent because we know that if the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory
Agency (PPPRA) was 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, 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 cannot
stop at simply by 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 Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala takes one more crucial step at full
disclosure.
“She must disclose to
the nation the full details of subsidy payments made to oil marketers in the
last four years, including the parameters used to calculate the subsidies. This
also must include how much of the subsidy was paid to the NNPC since the NNPC
is also being accused of making the same fraudulent claims.
“In other words, the
minister should be prepared to provide more information and make more
explanations regarding the management or mismanagement of subsidy payments in
the last four years,” he said.
Oshiomhole then delved
into the management or lack thereof of the ECA, adding: “This is another area
in which the Minister of Finance should come out, shed more light and put all
the cards on the table.
“During several
meetings of the National Economic Council (NEC), which has all the governors as
members and with the vice-president as chairman, I had cause to observe that
the state governments, who are joint owners of the ECA, with the federal
government, were not being adequately briefed on the status of the account.
“Accordingly, I had
consistently demanded from the minister a transparent and periodic disclosure
of accruals to the ECA, at least on a monthly basis. I had argued that even
village associations do make available their financial statements from time to
time, and as NEC, I see no reason why we will not even do better.
“All these years, my
pleas fell on deaf ears. The Minister of Finance consistently failed to apprise
the NEC with critical information on the management and operations of the ECA
in black and white, when she eventually got to do that, it was usually verbal
and casual, and hardly meaningful enough for decision-making.
“The minister had also
developed the penchant for deliberately avoiding NEC’s crucial meetings, which
many saw as a ploy to keep the governors in the dark. And when she was not
around, no one got any information, as if she was running a one-man show.”
Delving into details,
the Edo governor said: “It is interesting to note that by December 2012 the ECA
had a balance of over $10 billion. This has been depleted to $2.07 billion by
May 2015, according to the Finance Minister. Between January 2013 and May 2015,
not more than $4 billion was shared from the ECA. Indeed, the last time any
money was shared from the ECA was in May 2013.
“For six clear months
in 2013, NEC did not meet, an act many believed was contrived to conceal
information on the operations of the ECA. When eventually NEC met after those
six months, the Minister of Finance reported that the ECA had dropped to $4
billion.
“This prompted me to
ask a very pertinent question: if the closing balance of the ECA as at December
2012 was over $10 billion and that for three years running, Nigeria’s budget
had been based on the average of between $77 and $79 oil benchmark while the
average price of Nigeria’s crude has been $108 per barrel, suggesting an
average of about $30 per barrel over the benchmark price, how come there was no
accretion to the ECA?
“Indeed, based on a
rough estimate, we should be expecting not less than $30 billion accretion
based on the official oil exports of 2.3 million barrels per day. The question
which Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should answer, therefore, is why did Nigeria not make
any savings during the unprecedented boom years from 2011 to August 2014?
“The explanation
offered by the Minister of Finance, which was as usual oral, and of course, far
from satisfactory, was hinged on three factors, namely: (a) because of oil
theft not much accrued to the ECA; (b) part of ECA was also used to fund petroleum
subsidy and SURE-P; and (c) part of the ECA was also shared to the three tiers
of government at the request of the state governments.
“Her claims in my view
are untenable, fraudulent, illegal, unconstitutional and a clear breach of
extant financial regulations.
“In the first place,
the ECA is not the exclusive preserve of the federal government. It belongs to
all the tiers of government: federal, state and local governments. Moreover,
the minister has no power whatsoever to spend monies without the express
consent and approval of the state governments.
“Until questions were
asked as to the status of the ECA, no state government was put in the picture
about the fact that money was taken from the ECA, why it was, and for what
purpose.
“It is also a fact known to all that under the 1999 Constitution (as amended), only the National Assembly has the power to appropriate monies for subsidy.
“Similarly, nobody
spends money that is not appropriated or in excess of what was appropriated
without recourse to the National Assembly. And with regards to funding
subsidies and SURE-P from ECA, there was no indication anywhere that the
National Assembly authorised the use of ECA for that purpose.
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