Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the missing trillions (3)

Being concluding part of Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo,
former CBN governor’s response to Finance Minister, Dr.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s reaction to his earlier article on state
of the economy.
S econd, my earlier article stated that the minimum forex
reserves should have been at least $90 billion by now and
you did not challenge it. Rather it is about $30 billion, mean­
ing that gross mismanagement has denied the country some
$60 billion or another N12.6 trillion. Now add the ‘missing’ $
20 billion from the (Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation)
NNPC. You promised a forensic audit report ‘soon’ and more
than a year later the Report itself is still ‘missing.’ This is
over N4 trillion, and we don’t know how much more has
‘missed’ since Sanusi cried out. How many trillions of naira
were paid for oil subsidy (unappropriated?)
How many trillions (in actual fact) have been ‘lost’ through
customs duty waivers over the last four years? As coordinator
of the economy, can you tell Nigerians why the price of
automotive gas oil (AGO), popularly called diesel, has still not
come down despite the crash in global crude oil prices, and
how much is being appropriated by friends in the process? Be
honest: do you really know (as coordinator and minister of
finance) how many trillions of Naira, self-financing
government agencies earn and spend? I have a long list but
let me wait for now. I do not want to talk about other ‘black
pots’ that impinge on national security. My estimate, Madam,
is that probably more than N30 trillion has either been stolen
or lost or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under your
watchful eyes in the past four years. Since you claim to be in
charge, Nigerians are right to ask you to account. Think about
what this amount could mean for the 112 million poor
Nigerians or for our schools, hospitals, roads, etc. Soon, you
will start asking the citizens to pay this or that tax, while
some faceless “thieves” were pocketing over $40 million per
day from oil alone.
You alluded to debt relief in your response and tried to take
credit. Well, your CV is honest enough to admit that your two
achievements in office as finance minister under Obasanjo
were that “you led the Nigerian team that struck a deal with
the Paris Club” and that you “introduced the practice of
publishing each state’s monthly financial allocation in the
newspapers.” You are right about the two achievements. Let
me put on record that Nigeria would have secured debt relief
under anyone as Minister of Finance. President Obasanjo
secured debt relief for Nigeria. Much of his first term was used
to get Nigeria back into the international community and to
campaign for debt relief. Before you were sworn in as Minister
of Finance, President (George) Bush visited Nigeria and both
of us accompanied President Obasanjo during the meeting.
There, Mr. Bush promised to support Nigeria with debt relief
and asked our president to ensure that he met the conditions
of the Paris Club. Obasanjo mobilised the global political
support and coordinated all of us to ensure that the
government met the check-list of ‘conditionalities,’ as
required. I spent five weeks in the hotel with my team (as
coordinator/chairman for drafting the National Economic
Empowerment and Development Strategy, NEEDS).
Some of the reform targets in NEEDS became the
‘conditionalities’ Nigeria was required to fulfil to merit debt
relief. You and I signed the various MoU with the IMF on
behalf of Nigeria (the policy support instrument). We had a
great team at work and each member of the economic team
had specific aspects of the conditionalities to deliver: Bode
Agusto was in-charge of the budget; Oby Ezekwesili held sway
at Bureau of Public Procurement and later Minister of Solid
Mineral, and Education (but specifically tasked with delivering
on EITI and procurement reforms); Nuhu Ribadu was at the
EFCC fighting corruption; I was at the Central Bank delivering
on monetary policy and banking reforms; Steve Oronsaye
worked hard to delist Nigeria from the FATF; Nenadi Usman
was in-charge of the parastatals; El-Rufai held forth at FCT
and in charge of public sector reforms; privatisation
programme went on, etc. Did you know that the IMF wrote
President Obasanjo threatening that there would be no debt
relief if the CBN did not meet some monetary targets, and do
you know the magic we performed to meet them? Can you tell
Nigerians which of the ‘conditionalities’ that you personally
implemented? With the groundswell of political support and
Nigeria meeting all the ‘conditionalities,’ debt relief was
assured.
Your major role as stated in your CV was to lead the team to
negotiate the specific terms of the relief, having fulfilled the
conditions. I still believe that Nigeria should have gotten far
better terms than you negotiated. Of course, with your eyes on
returning to the World Bank after office, I did not expect you to
boldly stand up to the donor community in defence of Nigeria.
Was there a conflict of interest on your part?
By the way, can you tell Nigerians why you were eased out as
Finance Minister and you cried like a baby begging Obasanjo
to still allow you remain in the Economic Management team –
barely a few weeks after the debt relief? Why were you
eventually also removed from the economic management
team if you were so important? Ironically, President Jonathan
has recycled you, with a bigger title and greater
responsibilities. But the difference is that the team that did
the actual work is no longer there, and the world has seen
that the king is naked.
You are brilliant, Madam, but you need serious help. Having
spent all your life in the World Bank bureaucracy largely in
administration/operations, no one will blame you if your
economics has become a bit rusty. There are firebrand
Nigerians all over the world to draft to service. It is certainly
embarrassing to Nigeria for you to be bothering World Bank
economists to help you with most basic economic analysis.
Your response on the poverty issue is deeply troubling. You
accuse me of using “2011 statistics on poverty by the NBS to
support his argument, while ignoring more recent figures.” At
least you did not refute the NBS figure as valid. In the next
sentence, Madam went ahead to note, “as stated in the
Nigeria Economic Report 2014 by the World Bank, poverty in
Nigeria has dropped from 35.2 percent of population in
2010/2011 to 33.1 percent in 2012/2013.” Did you notice that
you have quoted two figures for poverty for the same year as
being equally correct? So, for 2011, was poverty 71 per cent
(according to NBS) or 35 per cent, according to the World
Bank? To the best of my knowledge, the last published
household survey by NBS was in 2011.
The World Bank does not conduct household surveys in
member states to determine poverty incidence. So, when and
by who was the survey that gave the World Bank figures?
What worries me is that this government is the first in our
history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under
Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published the poverty figures in
2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called upon the
World Bank to come and examine the ‘methodology’ and get
NBS to ‘review’ its numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP, Africa
Region rejected the call to try to tamper with a country’s
statistics). Once Oby left, the ‘World Bank’ started talking
about ‘new figures,’ without conducting any new surveys. I
was told about it by a World Bank economist and I cautioned
that it was a dangerous gamble that would damage the
credibility of the NBS.
If you want to ‘review methodology,’ you conduct another
survey but you can’t change ‘methodology’ because you don’t
like the published figures. No government in our history has
tried it: even Sani Abacha allowed a poverty survey that put
poverty at 67 per cent under his regime. At this rate, who will
believe statistics coming from the Nigerian government again?
Is it now the World Bank that sits in Washington and allocates
poverty numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here! Madam
alleges that the NBS – as a parastatal under the National
Planning Commission (under me) departed from the
‘international standard method of poverty measurement.’
How and when, Madam? I was in office at National Planning
for 11 months from July 2003 to May 2004. A poverty survey
was conducted in 2004 and the results computed and
published in 2005/2006 – more than a year after I had gone
to the Central Bank. Or perhaps, it was a clever way to divert
attention from your manipulation of published economic
statistics. The NBS published its poverty data in 2006 when
you were Minister of Finance, and you did not question the
‘methodology’ because the figures looked good. In 2011, the
poverty numbers (using the same methodology as in
2005/2006) indicted the government and suddenly, the
‘methodology’ is wrong. Interesting times!
Now that you decide, which economic statistics published by
NBS to accept and which ones to ‘change the methodology’ to
give favourable figures, you can keep feeding your manipulated
figures to your international media circus for the vain glorious
awards to sustain an empty hype, while Nigerians groan under
hardship. We can actually ask Nigerians whether they are get­
ting better off now, contrary to your bogus figures.
Many of Madam’s responses were comical, but this one is
classic. According to her, the chief economic adviser and NBS
“worked hard to determine how many jobs we need to create
in a year” and went on to ask, “why didn’t Soludo do this
when he was CEA?” (Lol!). Madam, any good economist
needs less than 10 minutes to compute this figure, not the
(months? of) ‘hard work’ by your team. My calculation is that
the number of jobs Nigeria needs to create each year to
significantly reduce unemployment rate to sustainable levels in
the next few years is at least three million, and not the 1.8
million by your team. We are talking about the Nigerian
economy, please.
Your magic wand for mass housing is the Mortgage Refinance
Corporation with 23,000 mortgage offers – for a country with
17 million housing deficit! Then, there is the pedestrian
proposal of a new development bank – financed with loans
from the World Bank, etc? A World Bank loan to set up an­
other ‘development bank,’ where we already have Bank of
Industry, Bank of Agriculture, NEXIM, Federal Mortgage Bank,
etc? People have totally run out of ideas and can’t see
anything for Nigeria without through the prism of the World
Bank. I will offer you free consultancy on how to set up a
development bank without a World Bank loan but we don’t
need another one now. I actually gave President Yar’Adua a
two-page note for a N3 trillion development fund then, and if
we plug your leaking pipes, it could actually be a N10 trillion
fund. I envisioned and set up the Africa Finance Corporation
(AFC) – Africa’s premier infrastructure bank! Frankly, I don’t
understand why you seem highly troubled that the Soludo you
thought had “disappeared from the political space” seems to
be still around. Well, let me assure you that I will only
‘disappear’ in God’s own time. I gave credit to two past
presidents who laid the foundation of the market economy we
operate today. You did not contest or contradict any of my
points. Rather, what you see is that Soludo must be ‘looking
for a position.’ Pity!
If I am looking for a position, I would be running around one of
the candidates now, just as you are busy dancing Atilogwu
dance at (Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria) TAN and
PDP rallies, struggling to keep your job. How Yar’Adua drafted
me to contest for governor in Anambra and )All Progressives
Grand Alliance) APGA leadership as well and how I was
“stopped” on both occasions are in the public domain. But I
am not deterred for one minute.
Chinua Achebe said that on leadership, Nigeria is a country
that goes for a football match with its 10th Eleven. I am proud
and happy to have offered to serve my people, and for the
service of Nigeria, I will do it again and again. How many
times did Abraham Lincoln, (Barrack) Obama, (Ronald)
Reagan, etc contest before they got there? I actually
encourage everyone who believes he/she has something to
offer to get involved or stop complaining. I am happy seeing
the increasing critical mass of professionals (like you) now
getting involved. It is good for Nigeria!
What is at stake is the survival and prosperity of Nigeria. Next
elections are critical, and for me the key is the ECONOMY. We
must offer Nigerians clarity on the choices before them. Can I
propose a three-way debate with you (representing PDP/
Federal Government), nominee of APC (Utomi or Fayemi? or
any other), and myself (as independent citizen – I don’t
belong to any of the two).
Let us have two bouts of debate between now and February
12, 2015 focusing on: CBN/AMCON and the financial system
(if you want); our economy and its outlook, and agenda/
alternative paths to sustainable prosperity post elections.
Choose the dates and times, and for the sake of Nigeria,
I will fly in. You can invite any of your international media
friends as moderators. I feel the pain of the 180 million Nigeri­
ans whose tomorrow you have carelessly rendered bleak, and
when I think of what the missing trillions could do for them, it
becomes extremely urgent that we all must deepen the
debate. Eagerly waiting for your response, please!
Concluded