{"id":11018,"date":"2013-01-27T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/01\/n10-6trn-fg-tackles-ezekwesili-says-her-allegation-self-indictment\/"},"modified":"2013-01-27T16:51:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T16:51:00","slug":"n10-6trn-fg-tackles-ezekwesili-says-her-allegation-self-indictment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/01\/27\/n10-6trn-fg-tackles-ezekwesili-says-her-allegation-self-indictment\/","title":{"rendered":"N10.6trn: FG tackles Ezekwesili\u2026 says her allegation, self indictment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Ben Agande, Abuja.<\/p>\n

The Federal Government, Sunday, reacted angrily to\u00a0 comments by the former Minister of Education, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili\u00a0 alleging that the governments of Presidents Musa Yar\u2019Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, squandered $67 billion(about N10.6trn) in foreign reserves, describing the allegation as \u201coutlandish and clearly fictitious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku who addressed a press conference\u00a0 on the allegations by the former Vice President of African Region of the world Bank said the damning verdict passed on the education sector by Mrs Ezekwesili was a self indictment, as she presided over the sector without bringing any positive impact on it.<\/p>\n

The Information Minister who was flanked by the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe; Economic Adviser, Prof. Nwanze Okedegbo and Special Adviser on Performance Monitoring, Prof. Sylvester Monye; said the allegations of Ezekwesili were curious in the light of the fact that she\u00a0 has been part of governance in the past.<\/p>\n

According to Mr Maku, Ezekwesili\u2019s criticism of the education sector amounts to hypocrisy as\u00a0 she was part of the sector and contributed to its sorry state, because , despite receiving N458.1billion between 2006 and 2007 for the sector, there is nothing to\u00a0 show for it,\u00a0 in terms of achievements.<\/p>\n

The Minister said,\u00a0 \u201cIf she says education has not worked it means she is saying she did not work\u201d.<\/p>\n

He accused the former Education minister of\u00a0 betraying a surprisingly limited understanding of government finances in her comments at Nsukka.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Information Minister, Mr. Labaran Maku flanked by the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President, Dr. Doyin Okupe and the Special Adviser to the President, Projects Monitoring and Evaluation, Prof. Sylvester Monye during the briefing on the nation\u2019s external reserves at the National Press Centre, Radio House, Abuja. Photo: Abayomi Adeshida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He noted: \u201cThese statements are even more curious in light of the fact that she has held senior positions in government, and more recently, a position as a Vice President of the World Bank. However, rather than speculate about her motives, we would focus on the facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statement by the former World Bank Vice President that the governments of Presidents Musa Yar\u2019adua and Goodluck Jonathan have squandered $67 billion in reserves (including $45 billion in external reserves and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account) left by the Obasanjo Administration at the end of May 2007 is factually incorrect. At the end of May 2007, Nigeria\u2019s gross reserves stood at $43.13 billion \u2013 comprising the CBN\u2019s external reserves of $31.5 billion, $9.43 billion in the Excess Crude Account, and $2.18 billion in the Federal Government\u2019s savings. These figures can be independently verified from the CBN\u2019s records. The figure of $67 billion alleged in her statement is therefore clearly fictitious.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, since President Obasanjo left office, the reserves have experienced fluctuations, rising from $43.13 billion in May 2007, peaking at $62 billion in September 2008 during the Yar\u2019adua\/Jonathan Administration when oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel, and falling subsequently to a low of $31.7 in September 2011. This fall in reserves was a result of the vicissitudes of the global financial crisis which caused CBN interventions in the currency market to defend the value of the naira. The Excess Crude savings, a component of the reserves, was also used to stimulate the economy at the height of the global financial crisis to the tune of about $1 billion (or 0.5 percent of our 2009 GDP). As a result, Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that did not seek assistance from international financial institutions. It should be noted that the fiscal stimulus used to shore up the economy during that period was shared by all 3-tiers of government, including commitments of about $5.5 billion made under the Obasanjo Administration for power projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ben Agande, Abuja. The Federal Government, Sunday, reacted angrily to\u00a0 comments by the former Minister of Education, Dr…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}