The House of Representatives finance committee walked out the minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Thursday, after a brief but stormy session in which lawmakers tasked the minister with 50 questions on the state of the Nigerian economy. Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala had earlier presented the budget proposals for 2014 to the Senate and the House of Representatives, before meeting the house finance committee.

The minister said she was indisposed and only
responded to her invitation out of respect for the
legislature. But when lawmakers offered to excuse her due to her health, but with a condition she responds to 50 questions in writing within two weeks, the minister backtracked choosing instead to answer the questions at the meeting. Exchanges between the minister and the committee chairman, Abdulmumini Jibrin, quickly escalated with Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala accusing the committee of being disrespectful.

“With all due respect, I will not tell your committee that
I’m feeling fine when I’m not. We have had good working relationship with your committee; I thought we’ll be treated with courtesy, but the way you’re starting is a bit disturbing,” the minister said. Mr. Jibrin said the committee had ruled that she be allowed to go and respond to the questions. “We don’t want any haphazard answers,” he said. The minister insisted on being heard, but was asked to eave.

“I’m sorry Honourable Minister. You can only decide what happens in the Finance Ministry and not in the House,” Mr. Jibrin said.

Read the lawmakers’ 50 questions below: House Committee on Finance Questions for the HMF/CME on the State of the Economy.

1. What should you consider as the major economic
achievements of this government in the 2013 fiscal year
and why? In your explanation, we will need facts and
figures in demonstrating such achievements.

2. You have been credited with many announcements regarding Nigeria’s economy as one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. If the economy is one of the fast growing economies, what is exactly growing the economy? What role does government play in the said economic growth, especially given that as high as 80 percent of the country’s total annual budget spending still goes into recurrent expenditure?

3. Since your arrival as minister of finance in 2011,
you have publicly announced the need to reduce the
recurrent expenditure so that more money would be
made available to capital spending which is critical to
growing and diversifying the country’s economy. How far has government succeeded in making these necessary cuts; and where exactly have these cuts been made in this effort to reduce recurrent expenditure? In other words, based on real amount spent on capital expenditure, how much reduction was made in 2011 against 2010, in 2012 against 2011 and in 2013 against 2012?

4. You are known to be celebrating a single-digit GDP growth. But speaking recently at a breakfast dialogue with some members of the organized private sector in Lagos, organized by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), you were quoted as saying: “We are growing, but not creating enough jobs. That is a very big challenge…We need to grow faster. I think it needs to grow at least 9 to 10 percent to drive job growth the way we want.” Don’t you agree that a good finance minister managing an economy like ours should be celebrating a GDP growth as high as 20 percent annually? Why is it that our economy cannot grow beyond a single digit? How many jobs are being created as a result of these said growths? In which sectors of the economy are these jobs created? If in private sector, what contributions is government making to further assist these private sector firms?

5. In the presence of Nigeria’s huge infrastructure
deficit, why is it that the country’s debt-to-GDP at about
19 percent in 2012 remains one of the lowest in the world when compared to nations already with world-class Infrastructure and industrial economies such as
America’s 105 percent, Brazil’s 65.49 percent, India’s
67.60 percent, and South Africa’s 40.9 percent?

6. Since facts don’t lie, have you any disagreements
with the September 4, 2013 Global Competitiveness
Report of the World Economic Forum for 2013-2014,
which ranked Nigeria 120th out of 148 countries ranked
in the Global Competitiveness Index, including being
ranked far behind some African countries such as
Mauritius 45th, South Africa 53rd, and Kenya 96th?

7. ”For the first time in Nigeria’s 53rd year history, we
have successfully privatized the electric power industry,’’ so said the President at a recent meeting in London with some foreign investors. As minister of finance should you agree that the recent privatization of the country’s power infrastructure is worth celebrating as a major economic achievement in 2013, when in reality there is little or nothing to show as an improvement in the country power supply? Also why our rush to wholesale privatization of the power sector when countries like South Africa,

generating as high as 42,000MW still have their power
sector mostly in public hands?

8. What was your reaction to the November 12, 2013
statement credited to the World Bank Country Director
for Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, who said that
over 100 million Nigerians are today living in absolute
destitution, representing an unheard-of 8.33 percent of
the world’s total number of people living in destitution?

9. Nigerians are increasingly perplexed that these days
nothing happens without government borrowing. And for most Nigerians, it is frightening how those managing the economy are just dragging us into excessively
unproductive debts. More worrisome is the fact that
every effort is being made to hide the details of the
country’s debt stock from Nigerians. Where are the facts that the country’s current high rate of borrowing is
productive, let alone have the ability to be repaid without having to resort to more borrowings?

10. Is prudence in our borrowing simply reduction in
borrowing or simply constructive borrowing with
government putting necessary measures in place to
ensure that domestic debt profile is properly supervised
and utilized by curbing corruption?

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