Monday, February 2, 2015
Rof-Rofo! Soludo Comes For Okonjo-Iweala Again...
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Former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo, yesterday slammed the minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, for what he described as the mismanagement of the economy under her watch.
"I will show that while you are introducing austerity measures and soon to eviscerate the citizens, our public finance is haemorrhaging to the point that an estimated N30 trillion is missing or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged — under your watch," Soludo alleged.
"The issues at stake are too grave to be trivialized through name-calling. As I write, the naira exchange rate to the dollar is at N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and unless oil price recovers, this is just the beginning. For the sake of Nigeria, I won't keep quiet anymore."
Soludo also rejected claims by Okonjo-Iweala that he performed poorly as governor of the CBN, insisting that his performance as CBN governor was locally and globally acknowledged.
Soludo further asserted that no CBN governor in the history of Nigeria had a achieved the record of delivering 24 consecutive months of single digit inflation as he did as the apex bank's governor until the advent of the unprecedented global crisis in 2008.
Soludo accused the coordinating minister of the economy of running the country's economy aground and blaming the state governors for failure to save for the rainy days whereas the federal government has benefitted more from sharing the Excess Crude Account (ECA) savings.
"I hereby challenge your attempt to blame others for not saving for the rainy day. It is not a virtue when you are quick to appropriate all the credit when things are going well, but shift the blame when they go wrong," Soludo stated.
"You blame the state governors, who, according to you, have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court – not that a Supreme Court judgement forced your hands. For your information, the governors have never agreed to savings and always threatened court action even under Obasanjo. Why did we save under Obasanjo but not under Jonathan? Two keywords explain it: leadership and integrity."
According to Soludo, the Governor Chibuike Amaechi-led NGF insisted on sharing the funds because they found out that the federal government was illegally fiddling with the savings.
"So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now 'missing' under your nose, why should governors trust you to keep their money?" said Soludo.
"Do the states that have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court and refused to save also include the PDP governors, who are in the majority? If so, then it is fatal: even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their money! Furthermore, did the governors also stop the federal government from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say they did not listen to your advice."
"The key point is that since you were running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop."
"You are brilliant Madam, but you need serious help," he said while reeling our data to show the porous state of the Nigerian economy. 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."
He also accused Okonjo-Iwealla of forging Nigeria's national economic statistics.
"What worries me is that this government is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala. When the National Bureau of Statistics (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," Soludo alleged.
"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."
According to Soludo, at this rate nobody will believe statistics coming from the Nigerian government again.
"I will show that while you are introducing austerity measures and soon to eviscerate the citizens, our public finance is haemorrhaging to the point that an estimated N30 trillion is missing or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged — under your watch," Soludo alleged.
"The issues at stake are too grave to be trivialized through name-calling. As I write, the naira exchange rate to the dollar is at N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and unless oil price recovers, this is just the beginning. For the sake of Nigeria, I won't keep quiet anymore."
Soludo also rejected claims by Okonjo-Iweala that he performed poorly as governor of the CBN, insisting that his performance as CBN governor was locally and globally acknowledged.
Soludo further asserted that no CBN governor in the history of Nigeria had a achieved the record of delivering 24 consecutive months of single digit inflation as he did as the apex bank's governor until the advent of the unprecedented global crisis in 2008.
Soludo accused the coordinating minister of the economy of running the country's economy aground and blaming the state governors for failure to save for the rainy days whereas the federal government has benefitted more from sharing the Excess Crude Account (ECA) savings.
"I hereby challenge your attempt to blame others for not saving for the rainy day. It is not a virtue when you are quick to appropriate all the credit when things are going well, but shift the blame when they go wrong," Soludo stated.
"You blame the state governors, who, according to you, have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court – not that a Supreme Court judgement forced your hands. For your information, the governors have never agreed to savings and always threatened court action even under Obasanjo. Why did we save under Obasanjo but not under Jonathan? Two keywords explain it: leadership and integrity."
According to Soludo, the Governor Chibuike Amaechi-led NGF insisted on sharing the funds because they found out that the federal government was illegally fiddling with the savings.
"So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now 'missing' under your nose, why should governors trust you to keep their money?" said Soludo.
"Do the states that have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court and refused to save also include the PDP governors, who are in the majority? If so, then it is fatal: even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their money! Furthermore, did the governors also stop the federal government from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say they did not listen to your advice."
"The key point is that since you were running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop."
"You are brilliant Madam, but you need serious help," he said while reeling our data to show the porous state of the Nigerian economy. 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."
He also accused Okonjo-Iwealla of forging Nigeria's national economic statistics.
"What worries me is that this government is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala. When the National Bureau of Statistics (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," Soludo alleged.
"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."
According to Soludo, at this rate nobody will believe statistics coming from the Nigerian government again.
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