The Okonjo-Iweala Who Worked For Me is Different From The Okonjo-Iweala Who Worked For Jonathan – Obasanjo Blast

 In a new interview with Premium Times, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo said the Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who worked in his administration as Minister of Finance and later resigned is different from the one who worked in the Jonathan-led administration. Read excerpt from the interview below...

"Take Ngozi (Okonjo-Iweala), who worked for me. And who worked competently for me. Because I know Ngozi’s weaknesses, but I know her strong points. Her strong point is technical competence. But Ngozi needs to be led and to be supervised. Now will you comment on Ngozi who worked for me as the same Ngozi who worked for Jonathan? Will you? But it’s the same person"

PT: At what point do you think she derailed if I may use that word?

Obasanjo: No.

PT: Is it at the point that you changed her – because you removed her as finance minister. Was it at that point that she began to derail?

Obasanjo: She derailed because….when Jonathan even said he wanted her, I said ‘I hope you can manage her.’ And Ngozi herself sent me a text (and) I told her times have changed.

PT: But why did you change her? She was managing the economy very well for you. Why did you now remove her suddenly?

Obasanjo: I wrote it in that my book.

PT: It didn’t come out clearly enough?

Obasanjo: It must have come out. Maybe you haven’t read the book very well. I said I’ve touched reform. I’ve touched almost everywhere except Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So one day, I was in my office and the Head of Service, Yayale (Ahmed), came in. He said ‘look, you are looking not happy, what is the matter?’ I said I am worried about two ministries and the ministers who can do the work I wanted to be done there in these two ministries are already doing good work where they are. And he said ‘talk let me see.’ I said education and foreign affairs. And he said ‘who are the ministers that you think can do the job.’ I said Oby (Ezekwesili), Ngozi, and El-Rufai. He said ‘what is Oby doing for you now?’ I said Oby is doing Solid Minerals. He said ‘Sir, in all sincerity, I know you don’t like to rank ministries, but will you say Ministry of Solid Minerals is as important as Ministry of Education.’ I said yes I don’t rank ministries, they are all important. He said, ‘Can’t you take any of these three to do education and then get somebody else to do solid minerals?’ So I took Oby there. Now in the Ministry of Finance we had got debt relief, so I could afford to take Ngozi to Foreign Affairs. That’s all. And then she had Nenadi (Usman) who was the minister of state. She’s not a buffoon. And then, which is also part of her weakness, she came to me and said, look, since it’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she will like to take International Finance along with it. I said talk to your sister with whom you are working and I don’t see anything wrong with that provided you work out a relationship. But she didn’t accord Nenadi the recognition and the consideration that was necessary. I then said the ministry of International finance should go back to Finance and that happened. She said she couldn’t act. She put in a letter of resignation. And she had done that before, and before she could come and get people to come and beg, I announced acceptance (of her resignation).

PT: She once resigned before and she took it back?

Obasanjo: Yes.

PT: Which means you were always having disagreements…

Obasanjo: No no no. I know her character.

PT: So why did she resign the first time?

Obasanjo: She just felt if she cannot have her way, with me…. If I am the one in charge, then it has to be what I see as what is the best interest of the nation.

PT: So even when she resigned, if you didn’t announce the acceptance she would have come back. So all efforts to make her come back didn’t work?

Obasanjo: No no no. Because I had announced.

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Okonjo-Iweala spent $2.1bn without Approval - FG

 The National Economic Council, chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday accused former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, of spending $2.1bn from the Excess Crude Account without authorisation.

“We looked at the numbers for the Excess Crude Account. The last time the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, reported to the council, and it is in the minutes, she reported by November 2014 that we had $4.1 bn.

 Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole told State House correspondents after the NEC’s 58th meeting in Abuja.

“Today, the Accountant-General Office reported we have $2.0bn. 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.”

 According to the economic council, the ‘unauthorised’ spending is among the several anomalies discovered in the management of the nation’s economy between 2012 and May 2015.

Within the period, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was said to have earned a total of N8.1 tn but remitted only N4.3tn.

Due to this reason, the Federal Government has constituted Oshiomhole, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai; Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel; and Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, into a panel to probe the NNPC and the ECA between 2012 and May, 2015.

Oshiomhole, el-Rufai, Emmanuel and the Zamfara State Governor, Abdulazeez Yari, jointly briefed journalists at the end of the meeting.

Yari told journalists, through the Director of Funds, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. M.K. Dikwa, that council members received the report of the ECA and unremitted funds by the NNPC.

He said:

“On that line, a four-man committee consisting of the governors of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom states was constituted to go through the books of the NNPC and Excess Crude as well as the Federation Account.

”The four-man committee will check the books of the NNPC, most especially the issue of excess crude and what is not remitted into the Federation Account.

“The Federal Government, in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria, will look inwards to see how to support and how much they will give to states, especially on the issue of outstanding salaries owed by the states and even the Federal Government.”

Explaining what happened at the NEC meeting, Oshiomhole said the NNPC and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation were compelled for the first time to provide information on the total sales of Nigeria’s crude from 2012 to May 2015.

The Edo governor said,

“We are talking about transparency; we are talking about change. And what we saw from those numbers, which I believe that Nigerians are entitled to know, is that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned N8.1tn, what NNPC paid into the Federation Account from 2012 to May 2015 was N4.3tn.

“What it means is that the NNPC withheld and spent N3.8 tn.

“The major revelation here is that the entire federation, that is the Federal Government, the states and all the 774 local governments, the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation Account for distribution to these three tiers of government came to N4.3 tn and the NNPC alone took and spent N3.8tn.

“This means that the cost of running the NNPC is much more than the cost of running the Federal Government. That tells you how much is missing, what is mismanaged and what is stolen. There are huge figures.”

“If the Federal Government cannot spend without appropriation, why should any agency spend without appropriation.

“This is what the Constitution provided for and this is what President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to do; henceforth all money must go to the Federation Account.

“If you were doing that, you would not have a situation where the NNPC alone will spend N3.8trn and remit to the federal, states and local governments N4.3trn, which means NNPC is taking about 47 per cent and that explains all the leakages you are talking about.”

El-Rufai said the account was set up in order to be accountable such that every state and local government would know what they had in the account though they could not spend it.

He said,

“The Excess Crude Account is 52 per cent owned by the Federal Government and 48 per cent owned by the states and the local governments.

“So the decision of the NEC is to set up this committee of four to look at the operations of the Excess Crude Account and make recommendations to council on its future.

“The other thing the committee will do is to look at the operations of the Federation Account, particularly the shortfall and again come back to council with very clear recommendations as to what to do.

“We have not been given a time frame but as you can imagine state governments are under pressure, many of our state governments are unable to pay salaries on time without recourse to borrowing, so this is very important to us.

“This is an all-governors’ committee; we wear the shoes and we know where they pinch. So we are going to do this as quickly as possible.

“The next meeting of the council is on July 23; we hope to complete our work and be in a position to report to council on that day. So within the next one month, we will be done by God’s grace.”

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BEWARE OF NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA

"They (Presidency) seem to be suffering from military hangover where budgets were announced after a meeting of the Supreme Military Council (SMC). The Federal Executive Council (FEC) is not the equivalent of the SMC. 

The National Assembly has replaced the SMC." There seems to be no end in sight to the "battle" between House of Representatives and the Presidency over the poor implementation of the 2012 budget. The House threw more barbs at the Executive on Sunday with the spokesman of the House, Zakari Mohammed insisting that the National Assembly is no longer “a toothless bulldog”. 

 Speaking at a special media briefing the House, in a direct reference, warned President Goodluck Jonathan against the kind of advice he gets from Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and other “un-elected appointees”, which might put his administration in more trouble. Mohammed said: “The idea of the National Assembly distorting the budget is incorrect. The National Assembly cannot distort a budget which it has full powers over. 

There is no law that says the budget must be returned to the President exactly the way it is forwarded to the National Assembly. “If the Appropriation Act is to be sent back to the Executive the way it is presented, then, it is better that the National Assembly is abolished. 

In a constitutional democracy, in the budgeting process, the National Assembly exercises the constitutional responsibility of taking care of the interests and aspirations of Nigerians from every constituency. The House spokesman, who read from a prepared text entitled: “2012 Budget, Non-Implementation: Okonjo-Iweala Should Address The Real Issues,” accused the Finance Minister of breaking the law by not adhering to the letters of the 2012 Appropriations Act.

 According to the House, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s claim that the executive arm has implemented 56 per cent of the 2012 budget as widely reported, “is not true,” as only “about 34 percent of the budget has been implemented.”

 Part of the statement of the House of Reps read:

 “The House of Representatives will like to restate its concern on the poor and selective implementation of the 2012 budget by the executive arm of government and the attitude of officials of government saddled with the responsibility of implementing the Appropriation Acts.

 For the avoidance of doubt, section 6 and 7 of the 2012 Appropriation Act clearly says what officials of government and in this case the Honourable Minister of finance is permitted to do.

 “If the revenue target is not achieved in any particular period, it is the responsibility of the Honourable Minister to seek for waiver from the National Assembly. This has not been the case as the Honourable Minister has not told the nation or the National Assembly that the monies for these projects are not available.

 “This is not to say that funds should be released and accessed by MDAs without due process and actual execution of projects. In other words, there should be value for money. How released funds are accessed by the various MDAs is stated in Section 7 of the budget Act and further guided by due process law.

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World Bank board to vote for new president today-See details

The World Bank’s 25 member executive board will today vote on who  replaces outgoing president Robert Zoellick, whose term expires in June. The prognosis of the chances of the two remaining candidates  (Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the American Jim Yong Kim) shows that the American candidate remains odds on favourite to clinch the job.

Although the World Bank has always had its presidents emerge from the United States (US), this election features the prospect of a non-US candidate – Nigeria’s Minister for Finance and Co-ordinating Minister  for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The other non-US candidate, Colombia’s José Antonio Ocampo, had  earlier stepped down for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in order, according to him “to facilitate the desired unity of the emerging and developing  economies around a candidate”.

So far, the US, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan and Russia have said they will back Kim. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, on the other hand has the backing of the African Union (AU). Meanwhile Sub-Saharan Africa has just 5.9 per cent of the vote at the World Bank.

Voting at the World Bank is usually proportional to, and in accordance with contributions of the member states to the Organisation, which means the Nigerian candidate’s chances are quite slim.

There are 25 executive directors who pick the president and only a few are from Africa. The five largest shareholders of the World Bank, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US, each appoint an executive director. Russia, China and Saudi Arabia also elect their own members. The rest of the executive board is elected by the other members.

The US currently holds the largest voting share in the bank (15.85 percent), followed by Japan (6.84 percent).Combined, the two countries hold 22.69 percent of the votes on the executive board.

The voting share for other large shareholders is as follows: China (4.42 percent), Germany (4.00 percent), United Kingdom (3.75 percent), France (3.75 percent), India (2.91 percent), Russia (2.77 percent), Saudi Arabia (2.77 percent) and Italy (2.64 percent).

Other countries with increased voting power are South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, Greece, Brazil, India and Spain.

According to Kalu Idika Kalu, Former minister of finance and one time staff of the World Bank, “When we were at the World Bank, the staff were the least worried about the election  of the president, it is more of lobbying based on the capital subscription/shareholding level of the members.

When a gentleman’s agreement cannot be reached, then the issue of elections comes up. So we need to wait and see what will happen before we can talk of election.”

For many observers, Jim Yong Kim, is more than likely to prevail, especially as the US supported Europe on the nomination of Christine Lagarde as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year.

Despite this, a number of global figures have argued that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, can and should lead the Bank.

With these challengers has come renewed complaints about the U.S. monopoly on the presidency and calls for the bank’s leadership to better reflect the world’s evolving economic order.

In 2010, the United States and other World Bank shareholder-countries pledged support for an “open, merit-based and transparent” selection process for the next president. As part of this process, the bank’s board held interviews with Kim, Ocampo and Okonjo-Iweala last week.

But despite such declarations, most analysts believe there is little doubt that Kim will secure the presidency. That’s because of the bank’s voting structure, which has long allowed the U.S. and Europe to impose their will in matters of leadership.

The United States and Europe together have roughly 50% of voting shares, which are based on money paid into the bank. Along with Japan, which has already pledged support for Kim, they form an unbeatable voting bloc.

Nevertheless, the emergence of strong candidates from the developing world -- and Okonjo-Iweala in particular -- has observers questioning whether the current arrangement remains tenable.

Ngozi Okonjo Iweala while speaking on a CNN interview yesterday said

“The development committee of the World Bank, as well as the G20, have  signed onto a merit-based open and transparent process for selecting the president of the World Bank. That means that it should be done based on who is best qualified from anywhere, regardless of nationality.

So I think that, you know, we took that seriously. The leaders of the continent of Africa, who asked me to be a nominee, I think, took this seriously.”

African telecoms billionaire and sponsor of prizes for good governance, Mo Ibrahim, explained why a flawed nomination process is not in the interest of the Bank or even the US.

“While citizens across the world fight against cronyism, electoral malpractice and bad governance, we must ensure that our global public institutions set the right example. No-one can lecture developing countries on how to manage their processes, public and private sector, if they so brazenly do not conform to the same standards.”

Mo further argued that “if this election process is not an open contest, it undermines the principle of fair competition that the US and the World Bank have traditionally exported to the rest of the world.”

The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, speaking at the send-forth dinner for the outgoing International

Finance Corporation’s (IFC’s) Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa ,also advised the United States, Europe and voting members of the World Bank to ensure that the next president of the Bretton Woods institution emerges based on merit.

Sanusi said: “We are talking about somebody who is competing, not because she is a Nigerian, black or a woman, but because of her curriculum vitae, her education, and her experience. There is simply no candidate out there, on merit that can compete with her. We do hope that the Americans and Europeans would practice what they preach to us and actually allow merit to reign.”

Major global newspapers such as the New York Times, The Economist and the Financial Times have also in recent times endorsed the Nigerian candidate.

Under a tacit agreement since the founding of the Institution in 1944, a US citizen has always led the World Bank, while a European citizen has always led the ‘sister organisation’ the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Source:Businessdayonline

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, nominee for World Bank President

Nigeria’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is among the candidates being proposed to take over the presidency of the World Bank, with the incumbent Robert Zoellick, having served notice that he would step down in June.

Ngozi was a former managing director of the bank until late last year when he resigned to become Nigeria’s finance minister, for the second time in less than a decade. She is the favorite of Nancy Birdsall, head of the Center for Global Development, who stressed that the selection process “needs to be competitive” and truly open to any candidate.

Birdsall has also proposed Nandan Nilekania, the Indian co-founder of INFOSYS.

It is crucial that “whoever ends up in the job has the legitimacy that a person that is truly competent would ensure,” she said in a phone interview with the AFP.

It is not clear yet whether Ngozi would dump Nigeria for the World bank job.

But the race is much hotter with Americans with renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, who led the UN committee on the Millennium development goals, throwing his hat in the ring Friday in a Washington Post op-ed piece, saying the World Bank needs an expert like himself rather than another politician or Wall Street banker.

Sachs’s declaration came amid signs the United States is eyeing others for the high-profile job.

“The United States signaled that it was looking at the possibility of nominating (Treasury Secretary Timothy) Geithner, (one of his predecessors Larry) Summers, or someone from the private sector like (Pimco chief executive) Mohamed El-Erian,” said a person close to the World Bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Those three have remained mum on their interest in heading the global development lender.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also has been widely mentioned in the media as a possibilty. Geithner’s deputy for international affairs, Lael Brainard, has drawn some attention as well.

With the deadline for nominations three weeks away, the competition “is beginning to pick up speed,” the source said.

One thing seems certain, though: despite a chorus of calls from emerging markets and NGOs for a non-American to lead the development lender, in the name of the “new normal” global economy, the United States, as the biggest stakeholder, is expected to decide the winner.

The World Bank has promised the selection process will be “merit-based and transparent” and open to candidates from its 187 member nations.

But in an unwritten pact since the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund nearly seven decades ago, the US has always put an American at the helm of the Bank and Europe has ensconced a European as IMF managing director.

But the clamor for an alternative has grown louder.

After Zoellick announced two weeks ago he was stepping down on June 30 at the end of his five-year term, China and Brazil called for a fair, competitive selection process

Neither has put forth an alternative candidate, at least not yet.

Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has suggested Muhammad Yunus, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in microfinance.

On Friday Yunus flatly ruled out taking the job, but the person close to the World Bank suggested that Yunus may still emerge as a candidate.

“But right now it isn’t the intention of the Indian director on the board to propose him.”

An Indian director holds the board seat shared by India and Bangladesh.

The source said Brazil would probably nominate someone, with some speculation focusing on former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Washington is maintaining a vault-like silence on its preferred candidate.

Traditionally it has been a high-powered diplomat — like Zoellick — or someone from the financial sector.

Clinton would be a popular choice, many say, and she has said she wants to retire as the country’s top diplomat by January, the end of President Barack Obama’s first term.

But she has also repeatedly insisted she does not want the post.

Geithner, too, has said he wants out of Washington by January, though not as strongly as Clinton.

Because of a controversy when he was World Bank chief economist in the 1990s, “Summers would be perceived as an affront for the Africans,” the source said.

Pimco’s El-Erian, the head of the world’s biggest bond fund, might solve a problem of “internationalizing” the job: he has both French and Egyptian roots, while also maintaining US citizenship.

El-Erian, who worked for several years at the IMF, could appeal to the emerging countries, the source said, “but it still is necessary to convince him to accept” the new job.

Sachs, who directs the Earth Institute at Columbia University and is a special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, made an argument for a more qualitative change.

“Unlike previous World Bank presidents, I don’t come from Wall Street or US politics. I am a practitioner of economic development, a scholar and a writer. My track record is to side with the poor and hungry, not with a corporate balance sheet or a government,” he said in the Washington Post.

“Finding the graceful way forward, forging the networks that can create global change, should be the bank’s greatest role,” Sachs said. “I’ll stand on my record of helping to create those networks.”

The deadline for nominations is March 23. The World Bank has set a goal of picking the new president by the World Bank-IMF meetings on April 20-22.

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