Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has again accused Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of finance, of funding the ill-fated
re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan with $1 billion
illegally deducted from the Federation Account.
BusinessDay reports that Oshiomhole made the allegation in Benin City
while declaring open a seminar organised by the state Permanent
Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors, with the theme ‘Enhancing
IGR in Edo, Issues, Prospects and Challenges.’
“The former minister also need to tell Nigerians how the Excess Crude
Account was drawn down to $4.1 billion from the peak of $10 billion
when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any
withdrawals.
“The truth is, many things went wrong even at the federal level. As
you might have read in the papers, while the Federal Government, under
Goodluck Jonathan, with the then coordinating minister of the economy
liked to blame ‘Governors’ for wasteful spending, for not saving for the
rainy day, for not investing properly; the truth is, the real weakness
in the Nigerian federal chain has been the Federal Government.
“Our hope is that with the new president, given his pedigree, we will
break from the past. As I’m sure you will soon begin to hear when all
the numbers are published. Last week, I complained aloud that Edo State
lost about N10 billion over a four year period from only one source, the
NLNG remittance to the federation account,” he said.
The governor said he arrived at the figure with the used of a figure
table, saying “how did I arrive at the figure? I used my 4-Figure Table
and I asked myself at $2.1 billion remitted by NLNG as taxes and Shell.
And by the way, Shell is not the only oil operative, we have Chevron and
several others. They shared the $2.1 billion based on the revenue
allocation formula, Edo State got about N2.27 billion.
“So, I said, thank God this money came after the departure of
Okonjo-Iweala and President Jonathan. If the PDP were still in charge in
Abuja, this money would have been taken.
He however said the state government would henceforth hold Permanent
Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors responsible for any fraud
detected in their departments, as the administration had trimmed down
the cost of running government.
IDRIS UMAR MOMOH
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