The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala, on Tuesday confirmed The
PUNCH’sstory that the Federal Government’s
subsidy account with the Central Bank of
Nigeria was empty, blaming the situation on
technical hitches in the documentation with
the CBN.

Okonjo-Iweala, while briefing journalists in
Abuja, said the transfer of funds meant for
fuel subsidy payments from the excess crude
dollar account to its naira equivalent
accounted for the empty account.

She explained that the documentation and
conversion process, which is between the
Ministry of Finance and the CBN, usually
takes between four to five days to
accomplish.

She said if the amount had been in the naira
excess crude account, the process of payment
would not have been delayed for that long.
She said, “It doesn’t normally take very long
if there was already money in the domestic
excess crude account to honour it and this
takes effect immediately.

“Sometimes we have to shift money from one
account to the other and usually if the
money is in the dollar account for the excess
crude and we have to shift it to the naira
account. That means, it will be converted into
naira by the CBN and we have to
authenticate the amount and so on.

“So between the Central Bank and the
Ministry of Finance, it takes between four to
five days to accomplish and the Central Bank
is of course very strict because it has to have
all the documentation, but I have been
informed just before I came in that the
money is being credited to the account now
as we speak.”

She said “as soon as the account is credited
on Tuesday”, marketers that had completed
their paper work should go for their claims.

She said, “You know the conversion is being
done and it is being credited to the account
so marketers who have not been able to
access their money should go today
(Tuesday) and they will be paid.

“So it is not something that takes a long
time, it normally takes less than a week to
finish that procedure. The Accountant-General
of the Federation is crediting the account
now and they should go and check.”
Her explanation confirmed the exclusive story
published in the Tuesday’s edition of The
PUNCH that the Federal Government’s
subsidy account was empty.

The PUNCH’s investigations had shown that
oil marketers who went to the CBN on
Monday were turned back on the grounds
that the subsidy account with the bank had
not been credited.

But the Minister said that the N161bn fuel
subsidy supplementary budget had been
released, and that of this amount, paper
work for a total of N94bn to 23 oil marketers
had been concluded.

She said, “We are appreciative for the
approval by the National Assembly for the
N161bn supplementary budget for fuel
subsidy.

“This money was meant to take care of oil
marketers and as of December 31 the Ministry
of Finance had approval for this money to be
made available in the central bank account
where they can be accessed by the marketers
once they have presented their papers and
their Sovereign Debt Notes have been issued.

“So the money was made available as of
December 31 and I understand that what is
being done at this moment is that the money
is being converted from dollars into naira
and this process is being completed.”

Punch Nigeria

All this big grammar just to shield herself frm anoda kidnap!

Oh this woman lies. It just flows because she's compulsive liar. How long does it take to convert dollar to naira Biko? We're waiting

Front page please to be a sequence to my post yesterday that fg subsidy account Is empty.

Front page please