11th May, 2015
Contrary to the claims by the outgoing Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that Nigeria’s economy will not collapse, one does not need to be an economic expert to know that the nation’s economy is in tatters. If the economy is as rosy as she wants Nigerians to believe, why is the country owing about N12 trillion naira? The government cannot even meet its salary obligations to hundreds of thousands of civil servants and had to borrow money to fund the 2015 budgetary expenditure in the first.
The President Goodluck Jonathan government is leaving a terribly messed up economy for the incoming administration to clean up. Okonjo-Iweala should be blamed for not heeding a timely warning by economic experts that the troubled economy was heading for the rocks. Long before things got this bad, some state governors raised the alarm that the economy was bleak. But Jonathan’s economic team dismissed the warning and said the government’s detractors were merely crying wolf where there was none. Now the chicken has come home to roost.
Another evidence that the economy is in serious turmoil is the controversy between the Federal Government and Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, over the actual amount being paid and owed for petrol subsidy. The debacle that has led to protracted fuel scarcity nationwide for about a month now calls for serious concern as each party lays claim to different figures or amount of money paid or collected.
Petroleum products marketers delegation led by Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Obafemi Olawore, and Okonjo-Iweala last Monday had a meeting to resolve issues of outstanding payment on subsidy claims. From their claims and counter claims, it appeared that in the course of the meeting, neither the minister nor the oil marketers knew the actual amount paid or received by the marketers. MOMAN had claimed they were still owed N200 billion after the government claimed to have paid them N154 billion the previous Thursday. The money in question is to enable them settle the National Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, that withdrew their services over alleged N21 billion debt. The withdrawal of NARTO’s trucks crippled fuel supply and caused the scarcity Nigerians are still grappling with.
The situation became worrisome when Okonjo-Iweala insisted that the outstanding debt could not have exceeded N131 billion, from the initial N98 billion. She based her conclusion on a weekly data released by Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, template. Nigerians are hoping President Jonathan and his minister would find a lasting solution to the impasse before the tenure of the present administration elapses. We know this is a tall order, given their record of serial failures. Many are still wondering how some marketers would be so powerful to have arm-twisted the government into doing their bidding. The reason is that the government lacks the political will to call their bluff.