TheCable

Adams Oshiomhole, governor of Edo state, has defended the allegation he made against Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of finance, saying she is good at playing with statistics.

Oshiomhole had alleged that the former minister spent $2.1bn from the excess crude account (ECA) without authorisation, an allegation that Okonjo-Iweala denied and described as “false, malicious and totally without foundation”.

But speaking on Wednesday, during Sunrise Daily, a breakfast programme on Channels Television, the governor said Okonjo-Iweala has explanations to make.

“With all due respect to former minister Okonjo-Iweala, I think she knows how to play around with statistics, I don’t want to say lie,” he said.

“This $2 billion is the last sum because in her last report, she said we had $4.1 biillion, she said so orally and it was captured in the minute, only to come at the last minute and they said X is left.

“I have made this point that she keeps opening only parts of the pages and not the entire book. The logic of transparency is that the honourable minister must publish in full what is accruing to the federation account month to month and what is distributed to who. What she has been publishing is that this is what went to federal government, this is what went to states, this is what went to local governments.

“What she has never published is what accrued during the period out of which this said sum was distributed so that you can net what is distributed from all that was collected and see what was left in the excess crude account. Now, you can see her changing the goal post.”

Oshiomhole faulted the decision of the former minister to discuss spending from the federation account with commissioners of finance and not members of the national economic council (NEC).

He said: “The power to take money from the crude account is vested in NEC. The council is an institution created in the constitution, the one she has been referring to is her own administrative arrangement. So she has no authority.

“Okonjo-Iweala was a member of NEC, I was also a member and we have asked her (and I am on record on this), don’t give us verbal report on matters of federation account, give us written reports and the power to spend is not vested in commissioners, she knows that.

“You look at the constitution and tell me which section gives the commissioner of finance, presided over by a finance minister, all of them unknown to ballot: they were not elected; they are not the people that Nigerians elected.

“When people are abusing governors today, nobody is talking about finance commissioners not even finance minister. So why would she rather have conversation with the commissioners of finance and not the governors, so she has explanations to do.”