Friday, 22 November 2024

"The Sorry Record of Madam Ngozi" by Daily Trust

 In this article, DailyTrust faulted the economic policies of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Nigeria's Minister of Finance for the past 10 years.
  
Excerpt:

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.

click here to read full article from DailyTrust

Conclusion: 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.


Madam Ngozi has given a prompt reply- Damaging Editorial: Okonjo-Iweala Lashes Out at Daily Trust Newspaper

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