Reps Give Okonjo-Iweala A ‘Homework’ In A Form Of 50 Questions Due In Two Weeks

The House of Representatives committee on finance has given the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a ‘homework’ in the form of 50 question as the lawmakers walked her out from the meeting onthe state of national economy on December 19.
TheMminister had appeared before the committee chaired byHonourable Abdulmumin Jibrinbut said she had felt bad.
Jubrin ruled out that in this circumstances they could not take on the Minister but that they would give her “the 50 questions” for which she must respond to in writing within two weeks.
The Reps have made a good job to make the questions as detailed and tricky as possible.
Okonjo-Iweala will have to say what the themajor economic achievementsof the 2013 fiscal year, and if the government has managed to reduce the current expenditures as was planned.
The lawmakers also wonder why has the Minister forecastedeconomic growthat only 9-10 per cent, and challenge her asking:
“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?”
Moving from microeconomic indicators to more specific areas of the Nigerian economy, the Reps ask Okonjo-Iweala to assess the success of the recent privatization taken into account the lack of actual improvement in thepower supply.
They also ask the Minister to comment 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 live in absolutepoverty,comprising 8.33 percent of the world’s total number of people living in destitution.
Okonjo-Iweala will also have to say how much money has been lost in government revenue as a result ofimport duty waiversin 2011, 2012 and 2013, and describe the implications of the loss to the country’s economy.

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