The Hindu Business Line : She means business

Nigerian Finance and Budget Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 50, is a firebrand in her own right. The former World Bank vice-president was featured as a reformer-hero in the October 11, 2004 issue of Time magazine.

Soon after Ngozi's appointment as minister in November 2003, there were suggestions that the budget function of her ministry would be taken away. She threatened to resign, arguing that finance could never be complete without the budget aspect. She kept her portfolio intact, and made it clear that she would not tolerate interference in her ministry's affairs.

Ngozi has every reason to take a firm stand. Nigeria's domestic and foreign debt stands at an estimated $34 billion, which is 100 per cent of its gross domestic product. Domestic credit had galloped to Naira 1.36 trillion in December 2003, up from Naira 1.1 billion in 1970 ($1 = Naira 134). Most of the debts were accrued by military dictators who plundered the nation's resources, including external loans, for selfish ends. And much of the money was spirited away into overseas accounts.

Many state governments and parastatals (large State-owned enterprises) borrowed from the international capital market for development projects that never took off due to mismanagement and high-level corruption. Successive governments simply pushed the debt issue to the backburner.

The high cost of running the government is another problem. Federal civil servants constitute only one per cent of Nigeria's 120 million people. Yet, the government spends 80 per cent of its revenue on salaries and benefits for this minuscule section.

At the other end of the spectrum, Nigeria exported oil worth $20 billion in 2003. However, about 60 per cent of the country's people live below the poverty line. Initially, other ministers in Nigeria — who earn $6,000 a year — questioned her relatively astronomical salary (over $240,000), which is paid by the UN in an effort to repatriate the country's best brains. But this assertive minister, a mother of four, still carries on.

Regarding Ngozi's appointment, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said: "Nigeria's economy requires urgent and regular attention. The focus should be on a change of orientation, a change of attitude that would make this country what it should be."

The Minister is tasked with changing the national orientation from the old "business as usual" to the right way of running government business. Together with a five-member economic team, she came up with the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, touted as a homegrown economic recovery strategy.

"We put them together and asked all Nigerians to comment and make an input. It is not a World Bank or IMF agenda," she says. "Let's not kid ourselves. We need these reforms in order to achieve stable micro-economic growth, stable pricing of interest and the exchange rate. They are necessary so that business can have a predictable environment with which to plan."

Ngozi's priorities on the economic recovery strategy are clear. "It is about making sure there is improvement in our roads, water supply, electricity, books and quality schools for our children, access to better health services, and fighting HIV/AIDS. This programme would be monitored; it will show what we are supposed to do with the available resources and, if we do not, we will explain why. If you are the Minister for Works, we would like to know how many kilometres of roads you built or rehabilitated, where, when and how many you completed. If you are the Minister for Health, how many health centres did you put into operation during your tenure? This is the key element of what these reforms are about."

On Nigeria's bloated civil service, her key task is to retrench up to 40 per cent of the federal civil servants. She called directors, deputy directors and assistant directors to a three-day compulsory retreat that ended with a mandatory examination.

The first of its kind in the country, the examination, says Ngozi, was "to determine mental fitness and suitability of the officers for public office in the new dispensation".

On her move to target allowances for top government officials on foreign tours, she drew applause from many journalists. Says Kayode Komolafe, managing editor of the Lagos-based This Day: "It is no accountability to conserve money by retrenching workers or imposing fuel tax and spending it later on presidential jets or hosting jamborees and fiestas despite mass opposition. The concept of accountability should go beyond bookkeeping. It should encompass responsiveness to the social mood of the nation..."

Justifying his administration's policy of 15 per cent women's representation in elected and appointed positions at all levels of government (which falls short of the 30 per cent endorsed in the Beijing Platform for Action, to which Nigeria is a signatory), President Obasanjo says: "Half of our population are women. If we ignore them, it means we are ignoring 50 per cent of the instruments of development. It also follows that we will have only 50 per cent development."

In her budget for 2004, Ngozi allocated 60 per cent to seven priority areas — education, security, roads, health, power, water and agriculture.

Women's Feature Service

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