This week, Nigeria’s Finance MinisterĀ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala chatted with CNN’s GPS host, Fareed Zakaria about two of Naija’s hot button issues – the suspension of Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi and the passing of the anti-gay bill. Her answers were definitely…diplomatic. Catch the highlights after the click.
On on the passing of the anti-gay bill:
On on the suspension of CBN gov, Lamido Sanusi:
ZAKARIA:Ā – The World Bank, I think when you were one of the managing directors, issued a report on the Nigerian economy in which it said hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 30 or 40 years have been siphoned off.Ā And so this would be a perfect example of precisely this kind of siphoning off.
OKONJO-IWEALA:Ā No.Ā I think we should hold our horses a little bit.Ā Sanusi please ask him never said the money had been siphoned off.Ā He said it was unaccounted for.
And hold on.Ā There’s a difference, because when he alleged $49.8 billion – and this was looked at, it was found that some of that money had really been remitted to the tax agency directly and his people were not aware of it.
So $16 billion was immediately accounted for that, you know, they didn’t seem to know the accounting mode of the agency, so that’s what I’m saying.
But there has been – there’s no doubt that Nigerians feel suspicious of the oil sector, that it has been regarded as opaque over the years and this is not an issue, you know, whether it’s $10.8 billion, whether it’s $1, you know, we can’t afford to lose any money from the treasury.
ZAKARIA:Ā But then why fire the central banker, a respected central banker?
OKOJO-IWEALA:Ā You know, Fareed, what I would like to do is perhaps focus on the economy, because I don’t think I want to get into this issue of firing/not firing.Ā He’s still governor of the central bank.Ā He has been suspended.Ā He hasn’t been fired.
But I think we need to focus on the central issue, which is no one dollar should be lost from the treasury.Ā Any money that belongs to it must be remitted.Ā That’s what we’re insisting.
And the president, we pushed for – he has ordered one yesterday, that there should be a forensic audit to determine where these moneys, that what is unaccounted for, is it the $10.8 billion that we are saying from the accounts?
We’ve been working on this for two years.
And you know, is it $50 billion?Ā Is it $20 billion?Ā Is it $12 billion?Ā What is the amount?Ā We need to know for the sake of the Nigerian people and he has ordered that.Ā So we want it to be independent; we want it to be well done, so that we can lay it to rest.
Read the transcript of the entire conversation, here.
What do you think of the interview? Share your comments and reactions below.
