Nigeria facing a tough time,shuns soludo's criticism-Okonjo Iweaja

The Minister of Finance and the Coordinator of the economy,Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala appeared on Raypower radio programme(political platform) this morning and made clarifications on a number of issues ranging from the economy,delay in salary payment of workers,forensic report on Nigerian National Petroleum coorporation,NNPC,as well as Soludo's criticism of the economy under her supervision and said that the country is in for a tough time ahead.
On the economy,Okonjo Iweala said that Nigeria is facing revenue shortage in oil revenue as a result of free fall in the price of crude oil which has made the government to invest heavily in Agriculture,rehabilitation of roads and railways among other things even before the fall of oil price.She said that the states have the option of prioritizing and expanding their revenue base just like the federal government does because Nigerian law states that its only the available revenues that should be shared among the three tiers of government.The Minister stressed that the political actors in the country has been hammering on the the collapse of the economy in other to score cheap political points and added that despite the fact that they keep saying that Nigerian economy has crumbled since 2011,the economy has been running and salaries paid.

However on the delay in the forensic investigation report that was submitted to the President yesterday which looked into the activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,NNPC,she said there was no way she could be in control of the investigation when her office was among the agencies that submitted themselves for scrutiny.She went further to say that the investigation was under the control of the Accountant General of  Federation and there was no how she would interfere in their operations.Okonjo regretted the attitude of  many Nigerians towards the government saying that there is no time government takes action that will satisfy Nigerians.''when the government does something ,they will say its too late or not done well and the government should be supported by all"

When asked about the delayed salaries of workers,the Minister said that a new salary payment system introduced by this government to check the unscrupulous activities of government agencies ,is programmed in a way that if there is any change in figure from any agency,the agency automatically gets shut out from the system.
She said" that was exactly what happened to about 14 ministries and agencies and had to be manually cross checked for accurate payment to be made".

On Soludo's criticism of the economy under her supervision,Okonjo Iweala chose to ignore him by saying,''there is no need engaging myself in a baseless argument with Professor Soludo".