Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday said she has no apologies for not paying N159 billion subsidy claim for foreign exchange differentials out of the total bill of N200 billion presented by the marketers.
In a reaction to the Edo
State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole’s article: “Economy: Okonjo-Iweala’s Hidden
Figures”, Special Adviser to the CME, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, said that 80 per cent
of the subsidy claim is made up of forex differentials and not the value of the
amount of fuel supplied.
“For the record, Dr.
Okonjo-Iweala has no apologies for insisting that a claim of N159 billion for
forex differentials by the marketers out of a total bill of N200 billion should
go through an additional verification process. When 80 per cent of a subsidy
claim is made up of forex differentials and not the value of the amount of fuel
supplied, the right and proper thing to do is to take extra steps to ensure
that the country is not being cheated,” the statement noted.
The statement noted that
Okonjo-Iweala met an outstanding N1.3 trillion fuel subsidy in 2011 when she
returned as the Minister of Finance. This prompted the establishment of the
Aig-Imoukhuede Committee that discovered that over N300 billion of the amount
was fraudulent.
“When she returned as
Finance Minister in 2011, the outstanding fuel subsidy bill was about N1.3
trillion. It was the work done on subsidy fraud by the Aig-Imoukhuede
Committee, which the Minister set up, later elevated into a presidential panel
that determined that over N300 billion of the amount was fraudulent. This
eventually led to the prosecution of some persons for subsidy fraud and
reduction of the annual subsidy budget to N791 billion, saving the country over
a trillion naira in the process. Maybe it was His Excellency who was snoring
while this was going on. Such baseless posturing only serves to diminish the
credibility of Oshiomhole in the minds of objective Nigerians,” he said.
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