FIVE years after she left the cabinet of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Managing Director at the World Bank, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday spoke on why she returned to the United States (U.S.) in 2006.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as the Finance Minister in 2003 during Obasanjo’s second term and was later moved to the Foreign Affairs Ministry before she called it quit.

It was speculated then that Obasanjo sacked her because she complained that she was not comfortable at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

President Goodluck Jonathan has chosen her to lead his Economic Management Team from 2011 to 2015 to achieve the Vision 20:2020 goal.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, a Harvard University-trained economist, who was at the Senate for screening yesterday declared that she left on her own in 2006, insisting that it was erroneous for anybody to insinuate that she was sacked.

“I was not dismissed or sacked. I left on my own after serving the country for more than three years. When you served your country meritoriously for three years, anywhere in the world, kudos must be given to you”.

“I did not run away. I was here but I resigned. When I was determined that I could no longer perform and give to the country the way that I would want, I resigned, which is the honourable thing to do. So, I did not run away.

“When the circumstances are appropriate to serve, you serve and if they are not appropriate, you go and do something else. I think three years plus of service is quite substantial, not only in Nigeria but elsewhere. In other countries, it is regarded as a good amount of time to have given the country and I intend to implement my mandate. If I am cleared, I will do my job.” she said.

She also carpetted the management of the Nigerian economy over the continuous depletion of foreign reserves, despite increasing international crude prices and the disproportion in the ratio of recurrent expenditure to capital budget.

Okonjo-Iweala warned against the determination of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to strengthen the value of the naira and declared that it was the reason that the foreign reserve was being depleted.

“I believe that right now, we are one of the few countries in the world and this was also what we found in 2003 that our oil prices are high and yet, we are losing reserves. It shouldn’t be because we should be increasing our reserves.

“At the same time, I am aware that part of the reasons our reserve is dwindling may be due to the decision to support the naira. I don’t think it is something that is untoward but if we want to revalue the naira, this will not be the time to think about it.”

While not totally against a country defending its currency, the former Minister of Finance said that it should wait “until things are more stable”.

“We are growing our economy, we are creating jobs, we make sure our young people are working and the sectors we have are really giving what they should before we think in those steps.”

She cautioned against the hasty manner in which the CBN was going about the implementation of its cash withdrawal and deposit limit as it has the potential of driving people away from the banks.

“Other countries are trying to use electronics and other means of transaction. I think that we should also be a little careful because it might have the opposite effect. If you implement a minimum or a maximum withdraw, people will decide to keep money in their mattresses and not put them in the bank because they will think they will not be able to withdraw them. We have to go about it carefully. I like the objective of moving towards a cashless society, but I think we should implement it with deliberation”.

On budgetting, she criticised the 2011 Budget which devoted 74 per cent of total spending and only 26 per cent to capital.

“In the previous government where I served, we tried very hard to put in place sensible fiscal policy that would enable us to have a reasonable fiscal deficit, but also reasonable policies that would enable us to implement the projects that were being financed by the resources of this country.

“I strongly believe that we should try as a country as much as possible to live within our means. Right now, we need to work very hard because the budget that we have is such that the current expenditure is almost 74 per cent of the budget. Therefore, there is not as much left for capital, so we need to work hard to put in place a proper framework to continue to implement fiscal policies that will enable us to tackle the various challenges in the economy while at the same time living within our means,” she said.

She insisted that the main problem with the economy has to do with creating jobs, adding that unemployment rate in the country now stands at between 14 and 16 per cent but that the figure was little compared with very large under-employment.

“The issue is how to make the economy growing in a way that it will create jobs. So, those fiscal policies have to be supportive of sectors that are going to be job creating, because we now have growth, but we need to translate that growth into jobs. Those are the kinds of fiscal policies that we need to encourage. We should privatise sectors that are job creating and try to see how we can invest in those,” she explained.

Speaking on joint venture arrangement with the oil majors, Okonjo-Iweala said it was a standard practice all over the world but that a country’s negotiators must be patriotic and knowledgeable during negotiation to get the best for the country.

“The major oil companies withdrew, citing lack of transparency, but that will make us to be able to show the world that we are capable of running our oil sector in an open and transparent way. I am not exactly sure why they thought that particular bidding was not transparent and you can imagine that the Minister of Petroleum, whoever is designated to that sector, would also be able to collaborate in terms of ensuring that the needed transparency is there to the benefit of everyone. That is all I can say. I am certainly in favour of that. I am sure the Minister will do the needful to make sure that the sector is also transparent and if people feel it is not, that is something we need to determine.

“I don’t believe we are the only country that has this kind of joint venture type of investment in the oil sector. I think the problem is that overtime, we have have difficulty in meeting our joint venture obligations but I don’t see anything wrong with them joint ventures per se. I think in the beginning, if you are going to go that route, you really need to have strong presence and advise to make sure that what you negotiate really would be to the country at the end of the day”.

The nominee also described industrialisation as very critical for the development of the country.

“I think this is really critical, I heard of Prof Nnaji talk about how because of lack of power, we have become de-industrialised. Many countries are closing, I heard some of our senators saying that we need power to make our manufacturing sector work. To achieve the kind of industrialisation we want, we need to tackle some basic infrastructure need and I believe we should prioritise these sectors that will contribute to strengthening our manufacturing and industrial sector in the budget and if we do that, we also have to have accountability for the use of the money. All on each amount that is directed to a sector, I believe we should demand result and we should monitor to make sure that those results are produced overtime.

“I think that N18,000 minimum wage we can manage, but that is not the only element in the budget. I know the states are having some issues with trying to pay. I think that, hopefully, we can work with the governors to see how they can pay the wage.

“We have other types of overhead expenditure which are also contributing to eating up the budget and we must ask ourselves this question. Are we going to be a country that is not able to release enough resources to invest in the future? We are talking of investing in power, we are talking of investing in roads and yet the money that we get in the federal budget is not adequate to go into those areas. What are we going to do? We need all your help, distinguished Senators. To make this happen is not a job for Mr. President alone,” she stated.

Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday cleared Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, the Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP), Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, Prof. Barth Nnaji, Erelu Olusola Obada and Prof. Ita Okon Bassey Ewa as ministers.

Others cleared are Comrade Aba Moro, Dr. Samuel Iorear Ortom, Mrs. Viola Onwuliri, Senator Idris Umar and Mr. Olusegun Aganga.

But contrary to the fireworks expected in the screening of Aganga, his screening and subsequent clearing was smooth and devoid of any rancour.

As is the custom, Umar was merely asked to bow and go. Mohammed was also asked to bow and go on account of his being PDP leader, Moro because he rose from grass to grace having started life as a garage tout and Ortom because he was the Director-General of Senate President David Mark’s Campaign Organisation.

Answering questions, Nnaji said it was only a segment of the junior staff of one of the three industrial unions of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) that is opposed to his becoming minister.

“There are three unions in electricity. You have the pension union, they have not opposed. You have the senior staff union, they don’t seem to be opposed. You have the junior staff union and it is a segment of the junior staff that is doing the opposition. But it is fear of the unknown.

“You have two types of fear here, one is fear of change and in any place where there is a reform in the world, this fear will hold the people in that sector and so, it is not different here. Thy are afraid of change. The second is fear of job loss. They are afraid that they will lose their jobs. But it does not make sense to us because we cannot manufacture workers from the air, it must be the same workers that are in the sector that will ultimately cooperate the sector.

“The problem is you have NEPA 1 who will be the one that will actually go to disconnect you and NEPA 2 will reconnect you with a fee. So, such people will no longer have capacity to do this sort of thing to a nation. Upon privatisation, the new owners of the companies may decide not to keep such workers that were incompetent. Anybody who is operating a business will want the people who are working to be competent. It is just normal.

“The plan is not to just leave the workers out there in the cold. The plan had been to enable us ensure that the workers benefit are taken care of and also apart from state government and the Federal Government, it is only the workers that are going to have shares in the companies. So, it is just fear.

“We believe that a segment of the workers union has been hijacked by interest groups. Those who get contracts and those who are awarding contracts. Those who want change, those who want status quo”, he said.

Nnaji dispelled fears that the huge investments in the power sector eventually went down the drain because the outcome of some of the investment will be seen in the National Independent Power Project which will be in the quantum of 4,000 megawatts.

He declared that the Federal Government does not have the money required to tackle the electricity problem as a result was talking of about $3.5 billion for generation on the average per year.

“The distinguished Senate will know how difficult it is to give that to a single sector for a year. When you now add transmission, which has a serious infrastructure crisis and then distribution and then we talk about gas, then you will be talking about almost $10 billion per year on the average over the next ten years to reach where we are going. And that is impossibility,” he said.

He lamented that many industries have died in Nigeria because of power inadequacy and cited the instance that he accompanied President Goodluck Jonathan to Kano where “we saw that 90 per cent of the industries have died due to lack of power. 40 percent of production cost comes from power.”

Aganga also decried the level of recurrent to capital expenditure of federal budgets.

He said: “The level of expenditure has increased significantly. Five years ago, it was N1.6 trillion. In 2009, it went up to N3 trillion. In 2010, N4 trillion and in 2011, it is going to go to N4.4 trillion. That is hard giving the level of revenue we have today. The second challenge we have is the level of our recurrent expenditure.

“In 2009, it represented 30 per cent of total expenditure. In 2010, it represented 73 per cent of expenditure and in 2011, it is going to be 74 per cent of the expenditure. What that means is that the amount we are investing in infrastructure and development is less than 30 per cent of total expenditure, so how can you develop as a country?”

He explained that that has been the case in the last 10 years and revealed that recurrent expenditure in 2009 extended beyond the total revenue.