News
Finance Minister Angry Over
Nerfund, Amcon, Others
Written by Ben-Bright,
Abuja
There are strong
indications that the minister of finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
may have made up her mind to either revive the moribund National
Economic Reconstruction Fund (Nerfund), or rest the agency
permanently.
Investigation by
Watchdogreporters informed that the minister also plans to bring
some economic agencies outside the supervision of the ministry
under her control. The agencies that may be affected are AMCON,
NERFUND and Bank of Industry (BoI).
At last week’s inaugural
meeting between the minister and the top Management of the
ministry and heads of parastatals under the ministry of finance reportedly
said that Okonjo-Iweala has directed the
permanent secretary and relevant directors to prepare briefs on
the agencies with a view to see if they can be subsumed by the
finance ministry.
According to a source,
Dr Okonjo-Iweala was of the opinion that “since the federal
government was the one that guaranteed all the funds that AMCON
was using to bail out distressed banks, the ministry of finance
should have a say in the activities of the Asset Management
Company of Nigeria (AMCON).” There are indications that the
minister’s new initiative is likely going to pit her against
Lamido Sanusi Lamido, the Central Bank of Nigeria governor.
The minister is said to
be comfortable with the actions taken so far by AMCON because
the Managing Director regularly briefed her while she was in the
United States of America before resuming duties last week.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s
interest in taking over the supervision of the agencies was
based on the absence of chief executives of agencies under the
ministry at the meeting. In the case of Bank of Industry the
source said Okonjo-Iweala was concerned that the ministry which
holds about 50 per cent of the shares of the bank was not the
one supervising the ministry.
She was said to have
demanded to know why the Managing Director of the Bank of
industry was not at the meeting but was told that the bank was
now under the supervision of the ministry of trade and
investment. The finance minister the source explained “believes
that since the ministry has such a large number of shares in the
bank it should not be left out of the activities or the
supervision of the CBN the holds the other half of the shares.
With regard NERFUND,
the minister was said to have noticed the absence of the agency
at the meeting and also asked to be updated on the activities of
economic agencies apparently to enable the ministry have a firm
grip on the management of the economy in all ramifications.
Trouble started for these agencies at the inaugural meeting when
the minister noticed that the Director General of the Securities
and Exchange Ms Aruma Oteh and the leadership of the Nigerian
Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) were absent.
It was learnt that the
permanent secretary informed the minister that the Managing
Director of NDIC was out of the country but not explanation was
given for the whereabouts of the SEC boss who the permanent
secretary attempted to call. However the source revealed that
the executive director operations of the NDIC Mr Aghatise
Erediowa arrived later for the meeting.
After being sworn-in as
the minister of finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Wednesday,
set a three point agenda for all staff of the ministry. She told
all cadre of staffing the ministry that the bye-words for
successfully meeting the government’s priorities from the
ministry’s stand point will be “efficiency, effectiveness and
delivery.”
She said she has
resumed work to implement President Goodluck Jonathan’s priority
agenda like job creation stressing that the federal ministry of
finance “is critical to the implementation of the agenda.
She implored all staff
of the ministry to work hard, and warned them that she is a very
demanding person and is not afraid to do what is expected of
her. The finance minister maintained that the economic team she
will head and that was inaugurated on Thursday is key to the
success of the government’s agenda. Nigeria, she said, can do
better than it is doing currently only if all those saddled with
the responsibility of implementing the policies play together as
a team.
|
