The unrelenting attacks by the Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhle, against the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, may not be unconnected with the ex-minister’s refusal to grant a loan request made by Oshiomole.
According to reports, the minister considered the proposed loans to be inimical to the overall interest of people of Edo state.
These observations were made known by a recent findings from the debt management Office by Thisday Newspapers.
THISDAY in a report said that documents it obtained from sources in the Debt Management Office (DMO) showed that the Edo State governor had in a letter dated December 9, 2014 requested a “No Objection” for facilities totalling N15.37 billion, which were turned down by DMO and the minister.
A breakdown of the loans showed that the Edo State Government asked for a N13.2 billion term loan from Ecobank Plc to enable the state government meet its payment obligations to contractors; a N1.03 billion term loan from Fidelity Bank Plc to meet the Edo government’s State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) 50 per cent counterpart funding obligations; and yet another N1.14 billion term loan from Ecobank Plc to meet the state’s 50 per cent counterpart funding obligations to SUBEB.
However, investigations revealed that all the loan requests were turned down by the Ministry of Finance under Okonjo-Iweala following the assessment and guidance provided by DMO, which observed that the loans would be inappropriate and ran contrary to the existing guidelines.
According to report, the former minister felt strongly that approving the requests could put Edo State in a very difficult position.
The first reason for her decision to decline the request, according to a source in DMO, was that it was wrong for the state government to obtain a commercial loan and repay same via a World Bank disbursement, which Edo State was expecting.
She had through the DMO communicated her reservations that using a concessional World Bank facility with a 25-year tenor and a five-year grace period at 1.25 per interest rate to pay for a commercial bank loan of 23 months tenor and 18 per cent interest rate was not only irregular but was not economically sustainable.
The sources said that Oshiomhole’s sudden repeated attacks against Okonjo-Iweala were indicative of the fact that he took the minister’s rejection of the application very personally, as he desperately needed the funds before the 2015 elections.
