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Finance Minister Angry Over NERFUND, AMCON, Others
Written by Ben-Bright, Abuja Watchdogreporter.com
Tue Aug 23,2011
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 Okonjo-Iweala
reportedly 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 no
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.
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