Oshiomhole said that the former coordinating minister of the economy illegally withdrew the fund from the federation account for Jonathan’s presidential campaign.
The governor made the accusation in Benin on Monday July 13 at a seminar themed “Enhancing IGR in Edo, issues, prospects and challenges,” organized by the state government for Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors.
He added that former Minister needs to explain to Nigerians how the Excess Crude Account was drawn down to $4.1 billion from the peak of $10 billion when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any withdrawals.
Oshiomhole added that Okonjo-Iweala would have been declared a liar if she was be a witness in court due to the inconsistencies in her statements saying that a forensic audit on the federation account would exposed how she spent fund illegally.
He told the participants of the seminar his government would now hold Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors responsible for any fraud detected in their departments, stating that, the government has trimmed down the cost of running government.
“The truth is, many things went wrong even at the federal level. As you might have read in the papers, while the federal government, under Goodluck Jonathan, with the then Coordinating Minister of the Economy liked to blame “Governors” for wasteful spending, for not saving for the rainy day, for not investing properly, the truth is the real weakness in the Nigerian federal chain has been the Federal Government. Our hope is that with the new President, given his pedigree we will break from the past.
“You will soon begin to hear when all the numbers are published, last week, I complained aloud that Edo State lost about N10 billion over a four year period from only one source, the NLNG remittance to the federation account.
“How did I arrive at the figure? I used my 4-Figure Table and I asked myself at $2.1 billion remitted by NLNG as taxes and Shell, and by the way, Shell is not the only oil operative, we have Chevron and several others. They shared the $2.1 billion based on the revenue allocation formula, Edo State got about N2.27 billion. So I said, thank God this money came after the departure of Okonjo-Iweala and President Jonathan. If the PDP were still in charge at Abuja, this money would have been taken,” He concluded.
It will be recalled that Governor Adams Oshiomole has been a strong critics of the former minster of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. He had initially accused her of withdrawn of several billion of dollars from the federation account with due process.
