Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is fuming that her view, delivered at an international forum in Washington, about Nigeria not saving for the rainy day has been distorted.
She said her arrows about how zero political will negatively impacted national savings over the past few years, were not aimed at former President Goodluck Jonathan, but to Nigerian governors during his presidency.
“Contrary to the slant given by these loud headlines, Dr Okonjo-Iweala did not indict the Jonathan administration in which she served”, her spokesman,Paul C Nwabuikwu said.
“Rather, she was referring to what many Nigerians already know: the strong opposition by some governors to the Jonathan government’s efforts to save in the Excess Crude Account and the Sovereign Wealth Fund sabotaged this important national priority.
The governors’ criticism of Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s many calls for the country to save for the rainy day are still fresh in the minds of Nigerians.
“It will be recalled that this opposition culminated in the Governors taking the Jonathan government to the Supreme Court in furtherance of their position that the Federal Government had no right to “compel” them to save.
“Several knowledgeable persons including former Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi have confirmed these facts.
“So the issue of Okonjo-Iweala indicting the Jonathan administration over this very public issue simply does not arise.”
Speaking on the topic: ‘Inequality, Growth and Resilience’ at George Washington University on Thursday, Okonjo-Iweala compared her time with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Jonathan and concluded that while there was a political will to save for the raining day under Obasanjo, the will was lacking under Jonathan.
During Obasanjo’s era, she said the government was able to save $22 billion and that this saved the country in 2008 during the global economic meltdown.
Okonjo-Iweala, while appealing to the World Bank and IMF to encourage a saving culture among countries of the world, added: “we tried it in Nigeria, we put in an oil price based fiscal rule in 2004 and it worked very well.
“We saved $22 billion because the political will to do it was there. And when the 2008 /2009 crisis came, we were able to draw on those savings precisely to issue about a 5 percent of GDP fiscal stimulus to the economy and we never had to come to the bank or the fund
“This time around and this is the key now, you need not only need to have the instrument but you also need the political will.
“In my second time as a finance minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political will.
“So we were not able to save when we should have. That is why you find that Nigeria is now in the situation it is in. Along with so many other countries.”