Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,194,667 members, 7,955,416 topics. Date: Sunday, 22 September 2024 at 04:36 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Okonjo And The Politics Of Political Will By Ebelo Goodluck (423 Views)
Buhari Lacks Political Will To Halt By Fulani Herdsmen - Reps / Okonjo-Iweala: I Said Governors, NOT Jonathan, Lacked The Political Will To Save / Jonathan Showed No Political Will In Fight Against Boko Haram – US Envoy (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Okonjo And The Politics Of Political Will By Ebelo Goodluck by brent07(m): 9:55am On Apr 25, 2016 |
Read the article by Ebelo Goodluck below...
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has had a distinguished
public career. Twice finance minister and
economic tsar, as the coordinating minister of
the economy in her last iteration, she has
hands on experience of the country’s
financials. That can’t be denied her. Recently,
speaking on the economic crisis in Nigeria at
George Washington University, Washington
DC, she said the current economic crunch was
down to a lack of political will to foster
savings.
"We tried it in Nigeria, we put in an oil price based
fiscal rule in 2004 and it worked very well. We saved
$22 billion because the political will to do it was
there. And when the 2008 /2009 crisis came, we
were able to draw on those savings precisely to issue
about a 5 percent of GDP fiscal stimulus to the
economy and we never had to come to the bank or
the fund.
This time around and this is the key now, you need
not only need to have the instrument but you also
need the political will. In my second time as a
finance minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the
instrument, we had the means, we had done it
before, but zero political will.So we were not able to
save when we should have.
That is why you find that Nigeria is now in the
situation it is in. Along with so many other
countries.” Now, the way this has been reported, and
has been latched on to, even by those who have
made a career of destroying NOI’s record of service
to her fatherland, creates the impression that there
was a paralysis in the government headed by
Goodluck Jonathan, or at least very little appetite in
trying. Coming at a time, an especially absentee
style of governance has taken over Abuja. Senior
government officials, like the governor of Edo State,
declaring a minister in the previous government of
stealing USD6b , with a facetious rider that a senior
US government official told him . Remember,
Oshiomhole featured prominently on every photo-
OP on the president’s trip to the US. Add to the
manic churn of the APC rumour mill: USD 90 billion
recovered from the former petroleum minister,
USD 200 billion recovered and to be repatriated
from the UAE, trillions of naira liberated by the
Treasury Single Account.
If a quarter of these were true, even a-kite-in-the-
sky president like Muhammad Buhari would not risk
over fourteen hours of flight time for the sights of
burgeoning China. Blaming the previous
administration seemed to have run its course as
poor management of the economy, most especially ,
a near-blindness to our diversity has robbed the
government of popular support. This is the fallow
land NOI’s comments, inadvertently or not , are
coming to water. The “inability” of the previous
administration to save was not for want to trying.
As we shall see, the previous administration did
save. What can't be argued against is that we could
do with much more savings. As it were, the gall in
NOI’s comments, is what is left unsaid. A little
context: NOI, as was President Jonathan, were
stalwarts of savings. But they were up against
governors who understood and exploited our weak
revenue laws and constitutional fuzziness . Bukola
Saraki, Rotimi Amaechi and Babatunde Fashola are
the trinity of earn and spend governors, who twice
took the federal government to court on the Excess
Crude Account. By some wonderful twist of fate ,
they are all leading lights of the current ideas-
challenged APC government .
What kind of political will could have stopped them
except an amendment of the constitution, which was
an impossible feat given the death-like grip,
governors wield over the state houses of assembly
or a resort to constitutional breaches that made the
federal government a present danger to our
democracy in the Obasanjo years. President
Jonathan created the Sovereign Wealth Fund. First of
its kind in Nigeria. Thanks to NOI herself, Segun
Aganga, Adesina Akinwunmi and the support of the
Nigerian people. Even here, part of the ECA had to
go just to stave off a constitutional challenge.
For any money to be saved in the nation’s financial
architecture, it has to get into the ECA first. But this
process was ambushed in the legislature by the
Aminu Tambuwal (another APC peacock) led House
of Representatives with the unwarranted increase in
the benchmark whenever it had to deal with the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) or
even the budget once it got to the floor of the
National Assembly. Raising the benchmark invariably
vitiates the savings anticipated and thus less money
in the ECA.
The major drain on the ECA through the Jonathan
years was the subsidy payments. NOI suffered more
than her fair share of name calling when the
Jonathan’s administration moved to remove the fuel
subsidy. The removal can't by any stretch be seen as
a lack of political will. Hence, it’s rather bewildering
that she would lay the depletion of the ECA on the
doorstep of Jonathan.
Indeed, were memories not that short, many would
recall that the sponsorship for the Ojota rallies
against the removal of the subsidy regime was from
the coffers of the Lagos State government. And just
last year, the Buhari government disbursed two
tranches of funds. First , was dividends from the
NLNG which the Jonathan government had saved
and the second, bailouts to near-bankrupt states
Needless to state that all that happened, once you
excuse certain acts of larceny that could be pinned
down to some individuals, are to the glory of all that
served the government . Collective glory, collective
responsibility. 1 Like |
Re: Okonjo And The Politics Of Political Will By Ebelo Goodluck by ultraGM: 11:07am On Apr 25, 2016 |
No source? Bad formatting, Someone must be weeding here |
Re: Okonjo And The Politics Of Political Will By Ebelo Goodluck by chriskosherbal(m): 11:08am On Apr 25, 2016 |
Hmmm na waooo |
(1) (Reply)
Fulanis Want To Islamise The South East: Emmanuel Enekwechi, Head Of BGIE / Nigeria Today Nigeria Tomorrow / FG To Toll Reconstructed Roads Across The Country
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 31 |