Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said yesterday that she would not respond to former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Dr Chukwuma Soludo’s accusation over the missing N30 trillion under her watch. This is even as the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) insisted that she must tell Nigerians all she knew about the money.

In a programme, ‘Political Platform’ on African Independent Television (AIT) aired yesterday, the minister said that she would not join issues with Soludo on what did not happen.

However, Okonjo-Iweala admitted that Nigerians would face some hardship following the drop in the international oil price.

She said the withdrawal of the Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTEF) was to accommodate the volatility in the oil market, noting that some civil servants received their salaries late because the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) machine locked out some 15 agencies who may have fed the machine with names outside the original list. Soludo had earlier alleged that over N30 trillion was stolen under the watch of the minister.

Okonjo-Iweala had, in a statement said that Soludo bungled the bank consolidation policy of the Obasanjo administration, saying that the former CBN Governor is an embittered loser in the political space.

In his statement entitled ‘Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the missing trillions’, Soludo said the sharp decline in the naira-dollar exchange rate from N158 a few months ago to N215 currently showed that trouble was already at the doorstep, adding that unless oil price recovers, “this is just the beginning,” “For the sake of Nigeria, I won’t keep quiet anymore!”he said.

Meanwhile, a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by the Director of Media and Publicity of All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO), Mallam Garba Shehu, flayed the blanket of secrecy surrounding the transactions that led to the alleged waste of the country’s scarce resources.

Shehu said, “Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala should speak up on this allegation of epic proportion. She has the responsibility to give an account of the management of the nation’s resources under her watch.

•Sourced from Daily Sun. Photo shows Okonjo-Iweala.

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