‘Nigeria not broke, only has cash-flow trouble - Guardian

FAR from the belief in some quarters, the nation’s economy is buoyant and the Executive arm of government has not breached any law in the implementation of the budget. This was the position of the Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, during an interactive session with the Senate Joint committee on Appropriation, Finance, Public Account and National Planning. Also, Senate President David Mark yesterday allayed the fear of negative consequences that are usually associated with occasional disagreements between the Executive and the National Assembly, as according to him, such rifts are actually central to the sustenance of a viable democratic culture and good governance Okonjo-Iweala, who was at the National Assembly, said in view of the fact that the implementation of the budget began only in April, the budget was still on course, having achieved about 40 per cent implementation in four months. “The country is absolutely not broke, though it may have problem of cash flow at times, but it is not out of place. There may be temporary cash flow issue but broke, no’’, she declared. She explained that out of the N1.3trillion allocation for capital projects, N404 billion had been released while N184 billion had been utilised. She further disclosed that about N140 billion representing 44 per cent of the amount was still in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) waiting for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to utilise. She expressed concern over the budgeting systems in the countrywhere the budget year is extended to March of the succeeding year, pointing out that “it is not done anywhere in the world and this must be changed.” She counselled the lawmakers against hasty judgment on the performance of the budget, saying: “ Give us till the end of the year before passing judgment on the performance of the budget, it is premature to talkof abysmally low performance.’’ She apologised to the committee for not being able to honour previous appointments on the session and the misrepresentation by the media. “I want to say that when I read papers, I was amazed with some figures, some section of the media has been misinforming. We sent out a press release, detailing all what has been done regarding the use of resources but even with written comments,it has been twisted, thereby leading to misinformation. I appreciate this opportunity to dialogue”, she said. On the issue of constituency projects, she said: “We have no problems with that, the projects are there, neither the president nor any one has said that. Ministers have launched these projects and they are on it, it takes some time to understand the whole process. “We have good collaboration with the National Assembly but there has been one or two things we are working to solve. For some MDAs, some projects were moved from one place to another, making it difficult for some MDAs to implement. I want to reiterate that constituency projects are being designed and procured. I do not think that it is something we should make a bigdeal out of. Rather, we should work together to solve the problem.” She explained further on the budget, saying: “We have been utilising resources gathered for 2012. From 2012 N85 billion statutory transfer was done for domestic debt payment of N95 billion, personnel cost of N449 billion, N95 billion overhead and so on. It was spent until April when 2012 capital budget was approved and it is done quarterly.’’ While opening the interactive session, Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba said the performance of the budget was a serious issue hence the session. “The performance of thebudget is a major concern to Nigerians because it is through the budget implementation that we deliver the dividends of democracy to Nigerians. This certainly is not going to be a family meeting, it will be a Nigerian meeting and we are making it as open as possible so that every Nigerian will get to know what truly is happening. You know in the many years of military rule that the National Assembly did not exist. Nigerians got used to living without the National Assembly. Now everything that goes on because Nigerians have got used to living without the National Assembly is blamed on the National Assembly. We will like to take responsibilityfor where we go wrong but what we certainly will not take responsibility for is the failure of others. If others fail let them takeresponsibility. Where we fail we will take responsibility. We are willing and we’ve always been the weeping boys of Nigerian politics. We will continue to take the weeping but we will not be the scapegoats for anybody. We will not be the excuse for anybody not to have done his or her duty’’, he said. Mark noted that there was an exaggeration of the rift between the Executive and the Legislature.