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Tag: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

  • 1.8m graduates enter job market yearly, says Okonjo-Iweala

    1.8m graduates enter job market yearly, says Okonjo-Iweala

    The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said yesterday in Abuja that 1.8 million graduates move into the labour market every year.

    Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, spoke during a meeting with the delegates of the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) on issues of youth development in the North.

    She said the data was generated by the National Bureau of Statistics and that it was to enable the Federal Government ascertain the level of youth unemployment and come up with policies to address it.

    “I am proud to say that after two months of methodological work, statisticians have come up with a data that 1.8 million people enter the job market yearly.

    “I am happy to tell you that last year, we created 1.6 million jobs. So we are getting close to the 1.8 million, who enter the job market.

    “We also have a pool of 5.3 million unemployed graduates, who have been accumulating over the years.

    “So, our strategy is to come up with policies that will cover the number of entrants every year before taking care of the backlog,” Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said.

    The minister noted that President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration was doing a lot to create employment for youths.

    “Through YouWin programme, we have had 3,600 winners, among whom 2,400 winners have created 27,000 jobs so far. Our target is to create a minimum of 80,000 jobs through this.

    “Through SURE-P, so far we have created 120,000 jobs. While YouWin is geared towards graduates, the SURE-P is for those youths, who may not have gone through school or did not complete their education.

    “The President has launched the National Mortgage Re-finance Corporation, which will not only provide housing for the low income earners, but will also create thousands of jobs for our youths.

    “We are targeting 10,000 mortgages this year and for every house you build, you create five direct jobs and two and a half indirect jobs, which can create another 75,000 jobs,” she added.

    On agriculture, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said more than 400,000 part time jobs had been created and had become a source of income for youths.

    She said government was designing a special programme for states in the Northeast, adding that the scheme would focus on education and agriculture.

    The President of AYF, Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said the visit was to deliberate on the issues of development in the North with regards to unemployment.

    “The AYF is making this important visit to discuss with you, issues of national interest, particularly the development of the North as it affects youth unemployment.

    “We wish to also discuss the absence of peace and unity, which has divided the country, washing away the brotherhood we were known for,” he said.

    Gujungu said the association had through the Chief of Staff to the President, presented a paper to the Presidency on the issues.

     

  • Immigration stampede: Govt to create more jobs

    Immigration stampede: Govt to create more jobs

    Federal Government has vowed to honour the memory of the dead Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) applicants by creating more jobs.

    Speaking at the inaugural Housing Stakeholders’ Implementation Summit in Abuja yesterday, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said: “The best way to honour the memory of youths, who died at the Immigration recruitment, is for us to create more jobs.

    “There is a lot of distress in the country and people are questioning whether the government has created the 1.6 million jobs it claimed to have created last year. The answer is, it has, according to the information from the National Office of Statistics. However, the problem is we have 1.8 million entrants into the job market every year. So, job creation has not caught up with the number of people entering the job market.”

    She noted that government is caught between “creating 1.6 million jobs vs. 1.8 million needed per year. So there is a 200,000 job deficit per year. In addition, we have a pool accumulated over time, of unemployed people amounting to 5.3 million and a pool of under-employed people (those working but the job is not full time) of 13.6 million. So Nigeria has a difficult unemployment challenge accumulated over the years.”

    Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said she hoped the first target of creating jobs for new entrants of 1.8 million was almost in sight, adding: “Once we reach that on a steady level, we can focus on creating more for the unemployed and under-employed pool.”

    She said the summit had given the government “the opportunity to stand true to the memories of those who died seeking Immigration jobs.”

     

    The minister urged stakeholders at the summit to keep to their pledge “to jump start the programme with at least 10,000 new house owners or mortgage beneficiaries by the end of the year. With the ratio of five direct and 2.5 indirect jobs created per house, this should enable us create at least 75,000 jobs as a start.”

    Well-functioning housing markets, she said, enabled savings, wealth creation and entrepreneurial development, “as a result, housing can address two interrelated policy priorities of poverty reduction and economic growth through enterprise development.”

    According to Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, “we need to work harder and faster to create more jobs for our youths. We are focusing on housing because this sector can increase the number of jobs in addition to growing the economy. This sector will create jobs for builders, carpenters, plumbers, managers, interior decorators… so many jobs.”

    She identified two parallel working groups mandated to analyse and deliver on the two major constraints identified as mitigating against harnessing the full potential of the sector.

    These are the Housing Finance group, chaired by the Ministry of Finance and includes partners: CBN, PMIs, World Bank, IFC, commercial banks, NAICOM, etc.; and land and land titling issues, mandated to review extant land regulations and registration processes to determine how best to ensure a more transparent and simplified access to land and C of O s.

  • The Economist: decision to sack Sanusi is bad news

    The Economist: decision to sack Sanusi is bad news

    Investors are spooked, interpreting the decision as a sign of the authorities’ lack of stomach for fighting corruption. Already, $2 billion of the $9 billion in foreign cash invested in Nigerian bonds has moved out; bankers predict more will follow. The naira plunged to an all-time low of 169 to the dollar on February 20th. Sarah Alade, a highly regarded technocrat who will run the bank until June, has pledged to continue to support the currency. But the foreign-exchange reserves she needs to do so have fallen by almost 14% from 12 months ago.

    The controversy has a strong political tinge. The Senate’s investigation was prompted by a leaked letter from Mr Sanusi to the president in which he accused the NNPC of violating the law. This put him in conflict with Diezani Alison-Madueke, the petroleum minister and a close ally of Mr Jonathan’s. The NNPC has repeatedly denied the allegations. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister, says an independent audit must establish the truth. Many see her outspokenness as a sign she doubts that Mr Jonathan will hold a credible inquiry. “The key question we need answered is what is the correct amount,” she says. “We need urgent action to bring this to the fore.”

    He claimed tens of billions of dollars in oil-and-gas revenue had been siphoned off in 2002-12. The president ordered three reports into it, but they never saw the light of day—if they exist at all—and no one was prosecuted. Months later the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, part of a global lobby for transparency in natural-resource revenues, revealed a leakage of more than $9.8 billion in 1999-2008.

    Mr Sanusi’s suspension has also provided ammunition for Mr Jonathan’s political opponents in the run-up to the elections in 2015. The All Progressives Congress, the main opposition party, described it as “the clearest indication yet that President Jonathan…is willing to silence any whistle-blower”. Although acclaimed abroad, Mr Sanusi has a mixed reputation at home. He tackled widespread financial fraud and overhauled Nigeria’s banks during a banking crash in 2009. He has stabilised inflation in single digits and cracked down on money-laundering. But his staff say he has dragged the bank into politics. His blunt outbursts criticising Nigeria’s governance propelled the legislature to propose a bill (which failed to pass) compromising the bank’s independence. Some accuse him of having political ambitions of his own.

    The Senate is due to confirm Mr Jonathan’s new choice of governor, Godwin Emefiele, who heads Zenith, a private bank. He is expected to keep quiet and stick to tight monetary policy. “He is hardly seen nor heard—a typical attribute of the central banker the Nigerian establishment prefers,” says Oluseun Onigbinde, an economist at BudgIT, a start-up that publishes Nigerian economic data on social media.

    Investors want the stability that came from Mr Sanusi’s policies and which Mr Emefiele supposedly seeks. But they are losing faith in Mr Jonathan’s administration. Thanks to its vast oil-and-gas reserves and the vitality of its 170m people, Nigeria remains hugely attractive. But Mr Sanusi’s tumultuous exit is another instance of the country’s squandered potential

     

  • So, Jonathan is nice?

    So, Jonathan is nice?

    What was Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank on Nigeria on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

    Not a few Nigerians would be surprised that the former boss of Nigeria’s apex bank could have some nice things to say about the president given his strident criticism of the administration, especially its lack luster fight against corruption.

    I am a bit surprised myself but then I remember this wasn’t the first time I would be hearing such a comment being made about the president. I’ve heard from quite a number of people who are very close to him or have access to him that Dr Jonathan is a very good person who meant well for this country but is surrounded by bad people. And each time I hear this I get annoyed. Why should a good man surround himself with bad people?

    Being soft spoken, courteous and nice to people are part of the qualities of a good person, but being good goes beyond that. The ability to attract good people to oneself is also a sign of goodness. You know a man’s character by the kind of company he keeps. Show me your friend, the cliché goes, and I will tell you who you are.

    True, according to Shakespeare there is no art in knowing the mind’s construction from the face, but then if one was deceived by the blandness or innocence of the face it shouldn’t take too long for a good man to discover the bad or rotten person around him.

    It has been a while now that President Goodluck Jonathan has mounted the saddle as Nigeria’s president and leader, and from day one, he has surrounded himself with some characters that not a few Nigerians are not comfortable with, yet he found them good company. What does that say of the president himself? Take the example of the former Minister of Aviation Madam Stella Oduah. I am not sure if there is anybody in this country who does not know that Stella was and still is Goodluck’s friend and it was mainly on the strength of that friendship that she was made a minister of the Federal Republic. She was so good to Jonathan particularly through her ‘Neighbour-to-Neighbour’ organization in the run up to the president’s election that he just had to compensate her for being there for him and she was made a Minister.

    Nothing wrong in that I guess, after all you work well with people that you know and trust. But not too long after, this woman became a square peg in a round hole and almost everybody except the president saw this and complained; to Jonathan, Stella could do no wrong. Even the President didn’t see anything wrong when the two BMW limousine scandal involving the former Minister and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) broke out. Not even the House of Representatives’ or the Presidency’s administrative panel indictment was enough to convince him to drop his friend.

    When he eventually did a couple of weeks ago, many believe it was just a desperate measure to rescue his seemingly doomed second term ambition; not out of conviction to fight corruption. The allegations against Madam Oduah are weighty enough to have warranted her immediate removal or suspension from office but the President chose not to act until he discovered that leaving Stella in office would be an unnecessary baggage that could jeopardize his re-election in 2015. Reluctantly, Stella had to go and for now scot-free.

    If Jonathan is such a good man as we are being told, then he shouldn’t have surrounded himself with the likes of Madam Oduah. Yes, nothing has been proven against the former Minister yet but the President would help Nigeria and his cause by releasing the report of the administrative panel that probed the car scandal and allow the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to handle the case and any other alleged cases of corruption involving her without any pressure or interference.

    If the President is such a good person then why is he still keeping Deziani Allison-Madueke as Minister of Petroleum with alleged cases of monumental corruption going on in that industry especially within the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). We’ve heard about 20 billion USD oil money reportedly missing for which the suspended CBN Governor was apparently being punished. Forget about the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria report on Sanusi’s CBN, it was just a convenient excuse to ease out a pain in the arse. Why wait till now to act on the council’s report that had been ready since March.

    This is not excusing Sanusi from accounting for his tenure as CBN Governor. If he had done anything wrong, particularly fraudulent, he should be punished. I am not one of his fans, but why punish him now after blowing the whistle on the missing oil money? And why not all those people involved in the missing money as well?

    The fraud in the oil industry dates back to the discovery of oil in Nigeria and has seemingly defied all actions taken by successive administrations to curb it. Most if not all of Jonathan’s predecessors are guilty, but then none of them has been described as nice the way Jonathan is being portrayed. So, if he is a nice and good person, then he should get rid of those bad people in our oil industry; he should start from his cabinet.

    If Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the coordinating Minister for the Economy as well as Finance Minister (whatever that meant) is sitting there comfortably with all these fraud allegations flying around, then I am afraid, she too had joined them. May be she is one of those bad people surrounding our ‘nice’ President.

    There are still many of them like that parading the corridors of power in Abuja. But like I asked earlier, why should a good person surround himself with bad people? The answer is simple, he too must be bad because like minds work together.

    Today we speak well of the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello even after they are no more because of the good things they did when they were in power or had access to power. They didn’t achieve all those good things alone, they were helped by the good people they invited into their government. So, if Jonathan cannot attract or invite good people into his government, then he himself is bad. Shikena.

    One last thing to add. We’ve heard so much about how good and nice President Jonathan is, but people are not coming out to talk about his unforgiving spirit. I heard he doesn’t forgive. If you are in doubt ask former Bayelsa Governor Timi Silva or his namesake Timi Alaibe the former NDDC boss. Both are from Bayelsa State like President Jonathan. What a nice man!

     

     

  • Golden girls at war?

    Golden girls at war?

    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, PhD and Oby Ezekwesili, PhD, were the golden girls of Olusegun Obasanjo’s transparent presidency. If you have read Nasir El-Rufai’s Accidental Public Servant, you would have met the pair, among the other transparency holiest of holies, in their true habitat.

    There she was, Okonjo-Iweala: dollarised Finance minister, who never shared her glory with anyone; and who Rufai, in his book, insisted wanted total control of her Finance and economic domain (later proved by her Jonathan era epaulette of “Coordinating minister for the economy).

    There was Ezekwesili herself, the inimitable “Madam Due Process”.

    There was also the theorise-or-be-damned Chukwuma Soludo, later CBN governor. In early days, however, Soludo stormed out of Okonjo-Iweala’s “cabinet”, because she would not share her glory and Soludo was staging his own grandstand for presidential attention.

    Of course, there was the “muse” himself, El-Rufai: clean, antiseptic, uncompromising — like some good machine with human life!

    But how times have changed. Soludo has moved on to be replaced by an equally voluble Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. Goodluck Jonathan has become president. El-Rufai has moved into the opposition. Ezekwesili, it appears, is non-committal, except to public accounts transparency. Okonjo-Iweala has achieved her dreams — empress of the economy; but under an especially clueless president.

    And that is the cause of the “war” between the hitherto chummy golden girls. In the scandal of the “missing” $20 billion NNPC public money that won’t go away, Okonjo-Iweala and Ezekwesili have gone different paths.

    Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is dreaming forensic auditing, to clear the air once and for all, since NNPC has submitted some documents to explain — or explain away, as quite a number prefer — how the money was purportedly spent.

    But Dr. Ezekwesili is screaming putative cover-up without quite saying anything. To her, forensic audit is easily compromise-able. NNPC is flush with petro-dollars to resist compromising any firm — any firm at all — if it really has anything to hide. She would rather keep Diezani Alison- Madueke, Petroleum minister, out of the probe loop too.

    Hear Madam Due Process thunder: “The minister of Petroleum Resources is the chairman of NNPC Board. Her argument in overseeing a mere corporation, usurp the power of appropriation is awful.”

    And her vicious raking of Okonjo-Iweala: “Sadly, the minister of Finance stated that her ministry does not have the expertise to verify the impunity-induced expenditures by NNPC.”

    No smoking guns yet, of course; and the fiery Madam Due Process is pronouncing no one guilty. But she smells, it appears, putative cover-up, and is furious enough at the tragi-comedy, in an otherwise serious public finance scandal. “How awful,” she thundered, “to see some reduce serious conversation on missing US $20 billion to what the Yoruba call ‘Awada Kerikeri’ [serious comedy]. No, this is not comedy.” Gbam! It is not.

    So, she suggests an international probe panel, like one Paul Volcker headed, in war-time Iraq, to get to the root of the matter. Why not?

    So, what can set hitherto golden girls of governmental rectitude and public accounting transparency on such a take-no-prisoner war?

    It’s the clueless Jonathan Presidency, stupid.

     

  • $20b oil cash: Ezekwesili disagrees with Okonjo-Iweala

    $20b oil cash: Ezekwesili disagrees with Okonjo-Iweala

    A former Vice President of the World Bank, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday faulted the proposed plans by Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to conduct a forensic audit of the Federation Account to ascertain whether $20billion oil money is missing or not.

    She said the firms to be hired for the job could be compromised by those who have mismanaged oil revenue.

    Mrs Ezekwezili said a panel of independent experts from various countries and representatives of civil society organisations would do a better job.

    Mrs Ezekwesili, who spoke with our correspondent on the telephone after posting some tweets, said when a similar crisis occurred in Iraq, a panel of independent experts was raised.

    She said putting in place a panel of experts is a global trend when it is difficult to reconcile oil receipts and expenditures.

    Her words: “How can officials of the state treat issues of public revenue with such level of cynicism and levity. How did $20billion become so ordinary?

    “How awful to see some reduce serious conversation on missing $20billion to what Yoruba call ‘Awada kerikeri’. No, this is not comedy.

    “The depth of distrust of citizens for whatever the Federal Government says on NNPC makes the forensic audit approach unacceptable. Which audit firm? Which?

    “The Minister of Petroleum Resources is the chairman of NNPC Board. Her argument in overseeing a mere corporation, usurp the power of appropriation was awful.

    “Sadly, the Minister of Finance stated that her ministry does not have the expertise to verify the impunity-induced expenditures by NNPC.

    “Settling for forensic audit by some recruited firm of auditors will not pass the test of credibility. Issues are too weighty.”

    Responding to a question, Ezekwesili said: “In 2005, when we had a similar situation on UN Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq, a commission headed by Paul A. Volcker, was inaugurated by the then Secretary General Kofi Annan to probe the more than $60 billion deal.

    “The use of Panel of Independent Experts and Civil Society Organisation representatives to investigate serious issues of this kind is global best practice. National Assembly can do same quickly.

    “Again my earlier advice to the National Assembly is to constitute an independent Panel of diverse technical experts drawn globally plus representatives to scrutinize NNPC.”

    She said the international experts will be selected “on the basis of their pedigree that they have been on such service globally.

    “These experts will be drawn from different parts of the world. In this way, the investigation will not be compromised.”

     

  • Reps summon ministers, agencies

    Reps summon ministers, agencies

    The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has invited the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison- Madueke and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to a hearing over the state of the economy.

    Others invited are: the Ministers of National Planning and Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission; the Chairman of Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission and the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

    A statement, titled: State of the Economy: In Search of Truth, by the Clerk of the Committee on Finance, Farouk Y. Dawaki, said the invitation was necessary to reveal the exact situation of the economy.

    The Abdulmumin Jibrin-led committee said it had also invited revenue generating and independent revenue generating agencies on the status of revenue generation, collections and remittances from 2011 to 2013 and their projection for 2014 fiscal year.

    “These agencies include Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Central Bank of Nigeria, Raw Materials Research and Development Council and Nigeria Shippers Council to mention a few,” statement said.

     

     

  • Missing federation account money: FG to engage forensic auditors

    …To seek legal interpretation of who gets what

    The drama surrounding the whereabouts of un-remitted funds into the federation account has taken a new twist with the federal government now calling for an independent forensic audit of verify the claims of the missing funds.
    Addressing members of the Senate Committee on Finance on Thursday in Abuja, the Minister of finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that “on the $10.8 billion which we had all originally agreed was the shortfall from the NNPC they have produced documents certified by PPPRA with background documentation to back it but we do not feel that the reconciliation committee has the expertise and then we are calling for a forensic audit of these papers in order to lay to rest what the shortfalls may be, what the NNPC owes or does not owe the federation account.”
    On the issue of $20 billion, Okonjo-Iweala noted that “the additional charges made by the CBN the reconciliation committee feels that the matter ranges around legal issues and that it therefore requires legal experts to answer the questions of who owns these proceeds, NNPC or the federation account.”

    However, the finance minister revealed that “as of December 2013, the cumulative unreconciled shortfall from NNPC payments stood at N1.792 trillion.”

    The finance minister added that “for the $10.8 billion, this is the shortfall as July 2013 which mirrors the period the CBN originally looked at. Amount withheld for subsidy $8.766 billion; holding cost for strategic reserves $0.499 billion; crude oil and product loses $0.76 billion; pipeline management cost $0.905 billion for a total of slightly more than the $10.8 billion we talked about. The data presented were all certified by PPPRA as being accepted by them and signed upon.”
    On his part, the governor of the CBN Mallan Sanusi Lamido Sanusi noted that the main issue as far CBN is concerned, is that “the reconciliation for us was to determine the value of crude oil that NNPC shipped, how much has come back to the federation account.”
    The CBN he said has “established that NNPC shipped about $67 billion worth of crude and about $47 billion came back into the federation account so there is a $20 billion unremitting shortfall.”
    He added that “the finance minister has explained that out of the $20 billion there is $6 billion that NNPC says it shipped on behalf of NPDC, there is $2 billion third part finance and the balance of $12 billion from our books and from the NNPC submission is what is outstanding from the domestic crude of $28 billion that was exported by NPDC, so as far as the CBN is concerned the most important point to establish is that there is a difference of $20 billion between what NNPC shipped and what it repatriated and we haven’t seen NNPC’s submission but based on public comments they’ve made.”
    In the view of the CBN, Sanusi insisted that there is no subsidy on kerosene and that the payment of kerosene subsidy is in violation of a written presidential directive.”
    The CBN he said has “also asked questions not about the entire $6 billion from NPDC, we asked questions about a specific part relating to oil produced in blocs under Strategic Alliance Agreement with Atlantic Energy. Our concern is to establish if the proceeds transferred to Atlantic Energy belongs to the federation account or not.”
    He agreed with the minister of finance that lawyers can come to proffer legal interpretation, but stated that “we have made no comments about the $2 billion third party financing we have been given no documentation, even the $6 billion for NPDC did not come into any account with the CBN we have not seen it but we have taken the words of NNPC for it for us there is a question mark over that gap.”
    He raised questions concerning the certification of “the actual amount of subsidy the NNPC took and there is the question of whether NNPC should have taken the subsidy for kerosene but for the CBN our task ends with establishing that there is $20 billion unremitted, after that it is up to the committee and the ministry of finance determine if the amount has been properly accounted for or not.”
    On his part Engr. Reginald Stanley Executive Secretary of the PPPRA noted that “it has never been our procedure that whatever we certify be subjected to forensic audit. This document was worked upon by PPPRA, DPR and NNPC.”
    He disclosed that between January 2012 and July 2013 they had have duly certified what was brought in by NNPC on PMS, totaling N813,802,673,022 at (N154.87/$) as what we have duly certified as subsidy on PMS  $5.254 billion. For kerosene we have meticulously gone through documents and came up with N543,890,398,525 or $3.51 billion.”
  • Reps challenge Okonjo-Iweala over N712b debt servicing

    Reps challenge Okonjo-Iweala over N712b debt servicing

    The House of Representatives is appalled by what it sees as the unwillingness of Finance, Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to make public what it costs the nation to sustain and service its huge borrowings.

    The lawmakers want the Minister to tell Nigerians the exact rate of interest and other service charge that come with the loans.

    Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Abdulmumin Jibrin-led (APC, Kano), in a statement yesterday said leaders should stop comparing the nation’s economy with other countries without taking into consideration the different circumstances of each economy.

    He said that the minister should explain why the cost of borrowing in Nigeria exceeds that of any other country in the world.

    “No one is excited about the celebrated insignificant decline in domestic borrowing. What the people are asking is: borrowing at what cost? What is the cost of these so-called reduced domestic borrowings, how are they serviced? How are the decisions taken?” he said.

    “Beyond that, since the Minister is in the habit of comparing our situation with those of other countries, why would she not tell Nigerians that the cost of our domestic borrowing remains one of the highest in the whole world.

    “In 2011, our domestic debt stock was N5.6trn. It rose to N6.5trn in 2012, and by 2013 it climbed higher to N7.1trn.

    “Domestic borrowing for 2011 stood at N852bn, N744bn in 2012 and N588bn in 2013. For 2014, it is put at N572bn.

    “The cost of servicing the debt was N495bn in 2011. In 2012 it increased to N559bn and jumped to N591bn in 2013. In 2014 a whopping N712bn has been earmarked for debt servicing.”

    The Committee also noted that the rising recurrent expenditure component of the 2014 budget, like previous ones, calls for concern.

    The Committee requested Okonjo-Iweala to furnish it with government’s plans to address the situation in favour of capital expenditure.

    His words:”It does not help to keep laying the blame at the doorsteps of previous administrations or attempt to drag late President Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan into the problem.

    “The Minister said cuts have been made in the recurrent expenditure but in what areas and by how much? Our recurrent expenditure in 2011 stood at N2.4trn. In 2012 it rose to N3.4trn and dropped to N2.4trn again in 2013. In 2014 it has risen a little higher to N2.43trn.

    “In acknowledgement of her established reputation as a world-class economist and banker, President Jonathan called her home from the US to help provide direction and improve the economy.

    “Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should let us know if this challenge surpasses her expectation, therefore, she is finding it difficult to cope. It is high time some people in public office stopped believing they possess the monopoly of knowledge.”

     

     

  • Fed Govt urges stay on judgment on tax appeal tribunals

    Fed Govt urges stay on judgment on tax appeal tribunals

    The Federal Government has urged a Federal High Court in Abuja to stay action on a judgment it delivered on October 30.

    The government’s action followed the court’s judgment voiding the establishment of the Tax Appeal Tribunals (TAT).

    In an application for a stay of execution, the Federal Government spoke of the “monumental economic consequences” if the judgment was executed, arguing that such could result in an economic crisis.

    The court restrained the eight TATs, established by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), from adjudicating on matters relating to tax and federal revenue.

    Justice Ademola Adeniyi ruled that the TATs were illegal, contravening Section 251 (1) (a) and (b) of the Constitution.

    The judge, among others, ordered the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to disband the eight tax appeal tribunals.

    The suit was initiated by a firm, TSKJ Construces Internacionals Unipessoal LDA.

    Arguing the application on Monday, Lucius Nwosu (SAN), on behalf of the FIRS, averred that the balance of convenience was in his client’s favour.

    He said: “More hardship will be done to this country, if the taxes collected previously by the TATs were repaid. State governments will have to refund money allocated to them in relation to the revenue from the TATs.”

    The lawyer also spoke of the effect on workers attached to the tribunals and those who depend on them.

    He admitted that the tribunal’s activities affected people’s rights but operated administratively and not judicially.

    Nwosu urged the court to stay the execution of its judgment, pending the determination of the appeal by the tribunal.

    But Babatunde Ogundipe (for TSKJ) said the FIRS lacked the right to seek a stay of the judgment, because it was merely a party before the tribunal and not its establishing authority.