Your Response to the 50 questions Unsatisfactory, Reps Tell Okonjo-Iweala

The House of Representatives has stated that the response provided by the minister of finance and coordinating minister for the economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to the 50 questions posed to her on the state of the economy is unsatisfactory, because it failed to provide the information required by the lawmakers.

In a letter addressed to the minister entitled “RE: STATE OF THE ECONOMY: OBSERVATIONS, REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND INVITATION TO INVESTIGATIVE HEARING”, the committee led by Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC, Kano) said after a detailed analysis of the response provided by the minister, it was discovered that some questions were ignored, misunderstood, partially answered or not answered at all.

In all, the lawmakers said 39 out of the 50 questions were not answered satisfactorily. A new request for answers to the 39 questions was forwarded to the minister to be replied not later than the 20th of this month along with an invitation to appear before the committee for a public hearing scheduled to hold from March 3 to 6.

The letter reads in part: “Your response to the 50 questions we raised to ascertain the true state of our economy dated January 15th, 2014 was received and carefully analysed by the committee.

“Having gone through your responses, the committee noted that some questions were either not answered, partially answered, outrightly ignored or completely misunderstood. The committee further noted glaring missing gaps in the responses, absence of supporting proofs to assertions and lack of relevant documents to back up the presentation as is the practice in any legislative oversight or investigation.

“Many data and statistics provided were inconsistent with subsequent information provided while answering other questions. Also noted were the wide-ranging comparison you made with other advanced and developing countries while responding to some questions but failed to apply the same in some cases that obviously require such approach. In some instances, you abruptly referred the Committee to relevant agencies for clarification. The committee is surprised at that because of its conviction that if all the questions raised are beyond the competence of the Minister of Finance, it is certainly not beyond the competence of the coordinating minister for the economy to the extent of information you must have in your possession, unless you say otherwise.

“In view of the above and ahead of the investigative hearing on the state of the economy, the committee is obliged to forward to you additional observations and requests to be submitted to the Committee not later than 20th February, 2014.

“The observations and requests are made on questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, , 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, , 43, 44, 45, 47, and 48 while further details on the following questions will be taken at the hearing: questions 7, 18, 19, 21, 2, 8, 29, 34, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 49 and 50.

“Your responses this time and submission of the supporting documents are expected to put issues in clearer perspective to enable the committee conclude preparation for the hearing.”

 

Highlights of the unsatisfactory answers

The committee asked: This time last year you informed this committee that our external reserve position was about $48 billion and the balance on our excess crude account was about $9 billion. You also said that the plan was to grow these balances to about $50 billion and$10 billion respectively. However we are hearing that the balances have dropped to $43 billion and $3 billion respectively. And you are saying all is well?

Read more here: http://leadership.ng/news/342758/50-questions-your-response-unsatisfactory-reps-tell-okonjo-iweala