I Was Misquoted- Okonjo-Iweala Denies Attempt To Pitch Lawmakers Against Jonathan

The Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister for the Economy,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Wednesday
denied statements credited to her on
the 2013 budget crisis, saying she has no
intention to pitch the National
Assembly against either President
Goodluck Jonathan or the executive
arm of government.

The embattled minister drew the anger of
the two Chambers of the National
Assembly on Tuesday following reports
that she had warned, while appearing on
an Abuja-based radio programme on
Monday, that the country would shutdown
if the impasse on the 2013 budget was not
resolved.
Ms. Okonjo-Iweala, however, told State
House correspondents on Wednesday in
Abuja that at no time during the radio
programme did she say that the
government or country was going to
shutdown if the contentious issues in the
budget were not resolved.
She said she drew attention to the
challenges the country's economy was
facing and pointed out that these are
short term problems that are being
addressed; insisting that that does not in
any way imply that the economy or the
country was going to shutdown.
"At no point in time did I say that the
government or the country is going to
shut down," the minister said. "The
economy is strong; we are robust; we have
our short-term challenges. As you know,
we are dealing with reduced revenue due
to the issue of oil theft, which Mr.
President is focusing on and is solving."
The government, she said, has already
constituted a committee of governors, with
the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, as
Chairman, to try and deal with the issue of
crude oil theft in the Niger Delta, pointing
out that government is confident that the
problem would soon be resolved, to bring
down the incidence of pipeline vandalism
in the region.
"What I did say was that we will not be
able to pay salaries, and that is a very
different situation we are talking about. So
this was a misleading headline from a
newspaper and we should not spend the
time of national debate on non-issues. At
no time did I say the country is going to
shutdown. I said we will not be able to
pay salaries and that remains the fact;
that is factual," she said.
On the allegation by Senators that she was
trying to pitch them against President
Goodluck Jonathan, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala
said the executive has a good working
relationship with the legislative arm of
government, adding that the two arms of
government would at all times work in a
collegial manner to ensure that problems
over the 2013 budget are resolved.
"It is absolutely untrue; we are not
pitching anyone against anyone.
We have
been working with Senators and House of
Reps members in a very collegial manner.
We are working with them. This headline
was put out mischievously. That was not
the headline," she said.
During the controversial interview the
minister had said: "The country has been
running from January up until now, and
we have been implementing the budget
that was passed. But, we have got to a
point where some amendments have to be
made, and this is why Mr. President sent
this amendment to the National Assembly.
"We can continue for a little while longer,
but at some point, we need the
amendment to pass, because come
September/October we may not be able to
pay salaries, because we would need to
restore about N32 billion for salaries that
were moved around.
The Senate and the House of
Representatives, which considered the
statement as calculated to blackmail the
lawmakers and incite Nigerians against
them, showed their anger by warning the
minister to desist from statements capable
of putting the legislature and executive on
a collision course.