Again, Okonjo-Iweala raises alarm over Nigeria’s economy

THE Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Thursday, raised the alarm over the economy, maintaining that the country must diversifying its economy to boost its earning. This is coming just as the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations questioned Okonjo-Iweala; the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Jonah Otunla and the Director-General of the Budget Office, Dr Bright Okogwu, over poor implementation of the 2012 budget. This came to fore when the minister led other government officials before the committee, headed by Honourable John Enoh, to appraise the 2012 budget performance. The committee chairman told the minister that House had been bombarded with complaints by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that funds were not released to them on time to execute their projects. According to him, “I can tell you that for instance, Ministry of Water Resources got an allocation of N70 billion, but got just about N10 billion, likewise the Ministry of Land and Housing, out of N42 billion allocated to it, only N6 billion was released. “On the other hand, Ministry of Niger Delta got 50 per cent of its allocation, as well as other ministries, but the question is: what can be responsible for that?” But the minister told the committee that the ministry was not selective in the release of the fund, adding that the release in the second quarter was based on performance of the fund releaed in the first quarter. The minister who used the occasion to speak on the state of the economy, told the committee that the country’s dependence on oil was increasingly being threatened by new oil discoveries in other African countries, stressing that ”competition is emerging, we will not be the only game in town.” She said “I have suggested to the president and governors that excess crude should be allowed to build up to $10 billion, it is presently at $5.8 billion, a growth from about $4 billion a few months ago. “We need to let it build to $10 billion so that we can have three months of expenditure to cover the whole country in case anything happens, by the same token, we need to let the reserves grow.” The minister added that “we are watching the performance of the economy in the context of what is happening globally. I think we have to really work hard in Nigeria on the implementation side.”