Coordinating Minister for the economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
An online news medium, SaharaReporters, has faulted the reaction of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to a story it carried on import waivers.
The medium had claimed that the wife of
the President, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, sought and received import
waivers that she then turned over to Coscharis Motors, a private car
dealer, to import 200 BMW cars in 2012.
It reported that Mrs. Jonathan secured
the import waivers in the name of her pet project, African First Ladies
Peace Mission and that whereas the Ministry of Finance outlined the
reasons for giving out waivers to the Lagos State Government and others,
it just stated that the waivers granted to the President’s wife NGO
were for the importation of “units of assorted brands of BMW” cars.
However, the Special Adviser to the
Minister of Finance, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, in a statement late on Monday,
accused the medium of extracting and distorting information on the list
of beneficiaries of the revised waivers policy, which the ministry
voluntarily published as part of its drive for transparency and
accountability.
Nwabuikwu said, “Part of the information
published by the Federal Ministry of Finance was a list of state
governments, private sector organisations and other institutions, which
were granted waivers to bring in vehicles for various events, including
sports festivals, conferences and workshops. This practice did not begin
with the Jonathan administration.
“Beneficiaries of the waivers for
vehicle imports include state governments such as Akwa Ibom, Rivers and
Lagos as well as organisations such as the Continental First Ladies’
Forum, which was granted a waiver for vehicles required for their event
hosted by Nigeria. The First Lady did not in any way personally benefit
from this waiver.”
But in a swift reaction addressed to the
minister, SaharaReporters said, “We are not surprised that you might
have authorised this release with the aim of casting aspersion on us;
this has been your style of responding to legitimate questions about
your conduct as the minister of finance. You have become very intolerant
and dictatorial when it comes to your responses to the media.
“You remember that on December 3, 2013
you published a doctored list of beneficiaries of waivers in response to
pressures mounted on your office by bignews . You had
hoped to bamboozle the public with this list, but we refused to accept
the list for publication until you then surreptitiously released an
updated list on the web from where SaharaReporters picked our story and dutifully acknowledged our source.
“It is clear that you had hoped that
your updated list would not have become public knowledge hence your
predictable attack on our medium.
“Since you claimed the First Lady did
not benefit from the imported BMWs, we urge you to go a step further by
producing the list of beneficiaries and also by providing the chassis
numbers of the imported BMWs under this fraudulent waiver you granted
Coscharis Motors in 2012. It will also be necessary that you provide
evidence that Coscharis used the waiver to import the vehicles for which
it was granted.
“You will also do the Nigerian public a
great service by explaining why Dr. Reuben Abati claimed that the
Federal Government was not contributing a dime to the importation of the
BMWs when indeed waivers worth N560m had already been granted to the
auto dealer by your office.”
Nwabuikwu had claimed that the country
had a nascent leasing industry and no company in the sector currently
had the quantity and quality of vehicles required for such events.
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