•N548.393bn allocation rejected
Is Nigeria broke?
Despite Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala’s denial, states left Abuja yesterday
empty handed.
There was no cash to share as the monthly
Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC)
meeting was aborted — for the second time
this month.
The chairman of the meeting, Minister of State
for Finance Yerima Ngama, failed to show up.
No reasons were given for his absence.
Besides, the arrears of the N366 billion
expected to have been paid in by the Nigerian
National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) is yet
to be paid.
The chairman of the commissioners, Timothy
Odaah, decried the situation.
Odaah, who is Ebonyi State Commissioner for
Finance, said: “It is like the states are being
starved of funds by the Minister of State for
Finance, giving us the theory of handle the dog
with great starvation and whichever way you
want him to turn, he will turn.”
The states, he said, “are not dogs; we respect
Mr. President and are calling on him to hear
this.”
He said commissioners and the state
accountants-general were invited by the
Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF),
Mr. Jonah Otunla, but he had nothing to tell
them and was as confused as the state
representatives.
Odaah said: “For the second time within the
month of September, the FAAC session has
been stalemated. We were invited by the
Minister of State for Finance, who is the
chairman of FAAC, but we have not seen him.”
According to Odaah, Otunla instructed him as
chairman of the Commissioners Forum to
invite his colleagues to yesterday’s meeting,
but at the end, Odaah said, “he (Otunla) was
more confused than anybody”.
He said he wanted to let us know that there
was no change.
Angered by the action, the state governments,
Odaah said, had warned the Ministry of
Finance “not to invite us until all issues are
settled”.
Odaah added: “We have imperative demands,
augmentations and differentials in benchmark,
which we listed. We agreed that there would be
no further augmentation in order to clear the
backlogs.”
At the first botched FAAC meeting in
September, Ngama and the commissioners
agreed that they would not “dip hands in the
reserve which made us to believe that the
NNPC has brought in something this time”.
Odaah said: “It was agreed that the
augmentation backlog till July should be paid
because states had entered into financial
commitments, relying on benchmark
expectations, the tendency is that states are in
a bad shape. Past augmentations should be
paid but from August no state will enter into
new contracts.”
“However, up till now, there has not been any
augmentation, no clearing of the backlog. The
worst effect of this is that it is having a
retrospective effect on the states and local
governments. As a result of this uncleared
backlogs, states rely on the budget in order to
secure financial commitments and handle
security issues and issues of contractors. We
have issues of insecurity, among others. Just
clear the backlog and we get along,” Odaah
said.
Ngama, according to Odaah, is “ playing levity
with our case”. “We have been slighted;
contempt has been poured against the states to
the extent that the interest of our states and
local governments is suffering. He has treated
us with contempt and treated our states and
local governments with contempt”
The way forward, Odaah said, “is that the state
accountants general, commissioners for
Finance on the directives of our governors are
going back and should not be called back until
the conditions we give are met and the
President must be informed.”
The commissioners went on: “To have called us
without any improvements in our demands is a
great slight and has shown that the minister
does not brief the President. We know the
President as a good leader with listening ears
who would have attended to these problems
immediately if he was aware, but it is like
Ngama tells him he will control us. We do not
support this situation. The minister should be
competent enough and show that level of
competence. The minister is running FAAC as
his own show.”
Last week, Rivers State Governor Chibuike
Amaechi said states were short paid in their
July allocation. According to him, of Rivers’
N19 billion allocation, only N14 billion was
paid.
Amaechi said this is an indication that the
government is broke.
He reiterated his call for Finance Minister
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to resign “if she cannot
manage the economy well”.
But the minister insisted that government was
not broke.
According to her, an indication of that is the
payment of civil servants’ salary for
September.
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