By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief
ABUJA—The Coordinating Minister of Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said yesterday that she came under attack by detractors who wanted to get at President Goodluck Jonathan and bring down his government.

Briefing the press on the on-going reform agenda of the federal government , in Abuja, she said that those behind the accusations of corruption against her had earlier tried to discourage her from joining Jonathan’s government but failed.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala who was accused of receiving a commission on the Nigerian debt deal with the Paris Club in 2005 and influencing $50 million contract for her brother while serving in the government of former president Olusegun Obasanjo told journalists that she expected more attacks ahead but that she won’t be deterred from pursuing the on-going reform agenda.

Her words: “With the launch of this aspect of transformation agenda (transparency), it is not a surprise that we see attacks. And as more aspects of the reform unfolds, we will see more and more attacks against my person and against members of the team.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

“The underlying motivation is for this administration not to succeed. Before I came people tried to block me from coming. They actually came to see me to tell me not to come. Because if I came there might be a chance for success.

“The people who are trying to do damage to my reputation, think that they can do that but I assure they cannot and they will never succeed. The more we move on with the reform, they will attack, plant stories and all that. This won’t stop. I am just alerting you.

It won’t stop because when you fight corruption, corruption fights back. So in the attempt to fight corruption, they will try to paint you like one of them”.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said it was up to the media to cross check their facts before publishing, rather than copy falsehood from “disreputable websites that have now become sites of lies instead of sites of truth.”

When asked if Wikileaks was one of the websites she described as “disreputable”, the minister said “I did not mention wikileaks, but the wikileaks story about me is completely false. How can they say someone alleged that I gave something to JonJon? Anybody who knows me would know I have no brother called JonJon. I am not concerned about that because everybody knows whom I am. But you don’t just let these things go like that. You have to quickly refute them.”

The minister expressed resolve not to be distracted, saying “absolutely, there will be no turning back in terms of doing the work. They will not divert our attention in terms of focusing on the substance”.

According to her, “Nigeria and the 150 million Nigerians are larger than any one individual or of individuals in the country. I don’t understand that kind of psychology. It is not even just about the administration but about the 150 million Nigerians whose lives should be bettered. Some people don’t want that to happen. That is what I take exception to. That they are ready to sacrifice their fellow citizens who want to improve roads, water supply, power supply, create jobs”.

She said that the World Bank usually carry out due diligence on candidates before taking them on and that she would not have been allowed to return to the organization after serving under former president Olusegun Obasanjo, if she was corrupt.

Publication of allocations to states and LGs

In her pursuit of transparency, the minister said she has resumed the publication of detailed monthly allocations to all state governments and local governments to enable Nigerians know how much their governors and local government chairmen receive from the federation account.

“We started during the last administration (Obasanjo’s government) to publish this on a regular basis. When I came back, I found that for almost a year, the publication had stopped. Actually, before that, they were not regular anymore.

“One of the most popular questions that people kept asking me was what happened? Why isn’t the government publishing the allocation to the three tiers of government anymore? So we immediately went to work. I asked President Jonathan who gave his blessing for a quick re-launch of this aspect, since it is by popular demand.

“With the support of the Accountant-General’s Office we started the publication again which you saw last week. But more importantly we have now put together the allocation in the last 15 months into a book. We will load it on the website so that Nigerians can see what their states and local governments receive monthly. That is transparency in action”, she said.

According to the minister individual Nigerians and civil society organizations could now download the data and do independent analysis on the allocations.

2012 Budget

The minister said that work had started in earnest on Budget 2012 and that her team would meet the leadership of the National Assembly between this week and next week with a view to arriving at the fundamentals.

She said that her ministry officials and those of the Budget Office were already working round the clock to ensure that the budget was presented to the legislature between November and early December for an early passage by the National Assembly.

Dr. okonjo-Iweala, however, admitted that there were some difficulties with the implementation of the 2011 budget which required the executive consulting with the legislature on the need to re-allocate funds to some projects for which adequate provisions were not initially made.