Investigations have unearthed documents which may reveal the real reasons
\nbehind the ongoing public campaign being waged by the Edo State Governor,
\nAdams Oshiomhole against former Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.<\/p>\n
It would be recalled that within the past couple of months, the Governor
\nhas seized every opportunity to attack the former Minister based on
\nspurious and unsubstantiated allegations.<\/p>\n
For instance, the Governor has asked the former Minister to \u201cexplain\u201d
\ndifferent sums, ranging from $30bn, $20bn, $10bn, N720bn and $2.1bn which
\nhe claims to be missing from the Excess Crude Account and other sources.<\/p>\n
Most recently, he accused the former Minister of using $1bn from the
\nExcess Crude Account to fund the re-election bid of the former President,
\nGoodluck Ebele Jonathan. A charge which she vigorously denied describing
\nthe Governor\u2019s allegation as a symptom of \u2018numerical diarrhea\u2019.<\/p>\n
Given the volume and venom of Oshiomhole\u2019s very personal attacks against
\nOkonjo-Iweala, many Nigerians have wondered what his real motivations are.<\/p>\n
Details from the documents in question indicate that the Governor may be
\nvery angry with Okonjo-Iweala because she refused to approve a loan
\nrequest by the Edo State Governor before the last elections.<\/p>\n
In a letter dated December 9 2014 the Edo State Governor had requested a
\n\u2018LETTER OF NO OBJECTION\u2019 for the following facilities:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 N13.2 billion Term Loan from Ecobank Plc, to enable the State
\nGovernment meet its payment obligations to contractors;<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 N1.03 billion Term Loan from Fidelity Bank Plc to meet the State
\nGovernment\u2019s State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) 50% counterpart
\nfunding obligations; and<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 N1.14 billion Term Loan from Ecobank Plc to meet 50% counterpart
\nfunding obligations<\/p>\n
But all three loan requests were rejected by the Federal Ministry of
\nFinance under Okonjo-Iweala on the basis of expert analysis and guidance
\nby the Debt Management Office which observed that the loans would be
\ninappropriate and run contrary to the existing guidelines. The Minister
\nfelt strongly that the requests if approved could put Edo State in a very
\ndifficult position.<\/p>\n
The first reason for the Minister\u2019s decision to decline the request was
\nthat it was wrong for the State Government to take a commercial loan and
\npay it back through a World Bank disbursement which Edo State was
\nexpecting.<\/p>\n
The Minister through the DMO communicated her reservations that using a
\nconcessional World Bank facility with a 25 year tenor and a five year
\ngrace period at 1.25% interest rate to pay for a commercial bank loan of
\n23 months tenor and 18% interest rate was not only irregular but was not
\neconomically sustainable. In fact, World Bank rules do not allow the use
\nof the institution\u2019s facilities to offset commercial loans.<\/p>\n
But the Minister did not just reject the application but actually offered
\nsome other solutions including borrowing a smaller amount through a 5
\nbillion bond with a lower interest rate than a bank loan. But Oshiomhole
\nrejected this option.<\/p>\n
The interesting thing is that Edo state is not the only state whose loan
\napplications were not approved by the former Minister. Several other
\nstates also had their applications rejected based on the results of the
\ndebt sustainability analysis done by the DMO. In some cases the
\napplications were not in line with extant rules and procedures.<\/p>\n
Governor Oshiomhole\u2019s repeated attacks against Okonjo-Iweala indicate that
\nhe took the Minister\u2019s rejection of the application very personally.<\/p>\n
Our investigations also show that he was not happy with the publication of
\nwhat the States as well as the Federal Government got from the Excess
\nCrude Account between 2011 and 2014 because it put the information into
\nthe hands of Edo citizens to whom he had been crying that he did not have
\nenough money because the Federal Government was denying the state its due
\nfrom the Excess Crude Account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Investigations have unearthed documents which may reveal the real reasons behind the ongoing public campaign being waged by the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole against former Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n