Unremitted $2.1B: Oshiomhole Fires Back At Okonjo-Iweala...
Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state, has fired back at immediate past minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over claims that she did not spend N2.1 billion from the Excess Crude Account without authorisation.
The governor, who hit back at Okonjo-Iweala during a live television programme monitored in Lagos, noted that the former minister was fond of playing around with statistics and verbal reports instead of the actual facts.
He said: “I think with all due respect to former minister Okonjo Iweala, she knows how to play around, I don’t want to lie with statistics.
“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 honorable minister must publish in full what is accruing to the federation account month to month and what is distributed to who.
“What she has never published simultaneously is what was accrued over a certain period. Okonjo Iweala was a member of the National Economic Council and we have told her not to give us verbal reports alone, but a documented report. She made oral pronouncements which were captured in the minutes but the real documents revealed otherwise.”
The governor had on Monday evening, revealed that under the watchful eyes of the former minister, about N8.1 trillion was generated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and only N4.3 trillion was remitted while the balance was unaccounted for.
Document revealing what each of the 36 states got from the Excess Crude Account in four years
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala subsequently fired back, stating that the number one citizen of Edo state was very wrong with his allegations and even published the sharing formula of the ECA over a period of four years on her Facebook page.
