Exclusive:The Inside Story of the Dollar Salary

HOW I CONVINCED OBASANJO TO PAY DOLLAR SALARIES TO EX WORLD BANK VP

BY FCT MINISTER RUFAI

LAOLU AKANDE
NEW YORK

For the first time and in full public glare, the genesis of the dollar denominated salaries to two Nigerian ministers was revealed in New York by Federal Capital Territory Minister Malaam Nasir El Rufai, who disclosed that he personally convinced President Olusegun Obasanjo on the need to pay Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in dollars.
The Finance Minister and her Foreign Affairs counterpart, Ambassador Olu Adeniji are both paid in dollar denominated salaries. The Finance Minister earns about $240,000 per annum, while the Foreign Affairs Minister earns $120,000.

Rufai who was in New York recently to receive a merit award from the well known Nigeria Lawyers Association, NLA narrated how he was present here in the US with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala when the call came through to her from the presidency that Obasanjo was offering her a job as minister in his second term as president.

Rufai, who has been a leading defender of the controversial dollar salary structure among members of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, said immediately the call came though, Okonjo-Iweala informed him that she could not take the job.

"I told her you must take the job, she said she can't," El Rufai recalled as he narrated to the over 200 guests at the Law dinner the reasons Okonjo-Iweala proferred. The guests included US Congressman Charles Rangel, a powerful African American legislator and hundreds of Nigerian professionals in New York.

According to Rufai, Iweala then explained to him that due to financial considerations including her upcoming huge pension payment at the World Bank, which she might loose in case she left the Bank. Iweala was also concerned about other financial commitments like school fees for her children's education in the US attending such top institutions as Harvard Universities and mortgage payments in Washington DC where she lived with her specialist surgeon husband, Dr. Ikemba Iweala, himself a distinguished Nigerian medical practitioner in the US.

The finance minister was so worried that the salary of a minister would lead to a heavy financial burden for her if she were to maintain all her financial committments, knowing full well that she is not the type to pilfer the public coffers while in office.

But it was an unrelenting Rufai who insisted that Iweala must take the job inspite of those financial concerns. According to the FCT Minister "I told her you must do this, we will all do what we have to do, we must make Nigeria  government work."

The FCT Minister, who himself was yet to be named a Minister at that time said he told Okonjo-Iweala that she was key to a series of reform that needed to be put in place in the then new upcoming administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Rufai noted that inspite of his insistence, Iweala still said no, she can't accept the job.
So the FCT Minister assured the then World Bank Vice President that the problem would be resolved. "So I went back to say to the President that she can't take the job." According to Rufai, a shocked Obasanjo retorted "What?

He then narrated how he explained to the president that "you can't pay her," which according to him eventually led to the dollar denominated salary. Rufai said the UNDP fund was thus started so Okonjo-Iweala could be paid

Lasy year June, ie 2003, Okonjo-Iweala was herself honored by the same Nigeria Lawyers Association, NLA at that year's law dinner for the same merit award given to Rufai most recently. At that event in 2003, Okonjo-Iweala drew a huge applause and gave a highly well received speech where she urged Nigerians abroad to be  ready to bail the country out. She was clearly concerned about the fate of Nigeria

This was how a report of that event went according to a Nigeriaworld report last June.

"Her speech at the Lawyers dinner recently in New York was clearly a clarion call to all Nigerians in the Diaspora to offer themselves for salvaging of the country alongside folks at home. May be she was addressing the critical arm of Nigerians abroad who have vent their frustration so stridently especially on the internet on the dwindling fortune of the county. She noted that "many people say things about Nigeria that we don't want to hear, but whatever, it is about their love of the country."

She went ahead to say the issue now is to plan for Nigeria's future and not to get caught in lamenting its past. "Nigeria is at a junction where we have to think of the future. I feel strongly that if we the young ones don't do something to seize the opportunity, we will be in danger of loosing the future. If you don't fix your house, it may be fixed for you."

But in statement over the weekend Kennedy Emetulu, the London based lawyer and former journalist insisted that the the FCT Minister and the UNDP should make a full disclosure about this fund since the fund in its objective, design and purpose is different from all other thematic funds of the UNDP. Many other observers insist that the UNDP fund was an after-thought.

Rufai had compared the UNDP fund to similar ones in other countries, but Emetulu dismissing the claim noted that it is obvious that the minister's claims "bother on outright lies or half-truths and these are delivered with the aim of deceiving Nigerians into believing that what they have is what obtains elsewhere."

In a statement he noted that "Nigerians have seen through this and have insisted and continue to insist that the Nigerian government and the UNDP come up with full disclosures."

According to him, "as I write, Mr Mark Malloch Brown, the UNDP Administrator has in front of him 19 questions to answer regarding the Nigerian Diaspora Trust Fund. These questions have been sent to him between Monday, March 8, 2004 and Wednesday, March 10 2004. "

He went on "If the UNDP is actually prepared to be open and transparent about the Nigerian Diaspora Trust Fund as it's promised, then Mr Brown needs to address those questions."

But another Nigerian journalist and public affairs analyst has observed that the debate over the dollar salary is a good one as it is a basis for determining salaries in Nigeria principally on productivity. He said all ministers don't have to be equally paid. The president should have the right to pay ministers differently based on his valuation of their net contributions.

The New York based Pastor Nimi Wariboko, former deputy editor of the defunct
Financial Post told The Guardian that President Obasanjo is the one to hold responsible in this matter and not Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who according to him
merely negotiated a salary for herself.

Wariboko, an author on economic history, finance and management and professor at the New York University and the business school at Hofstra University also in New York said historically in Ashanti empire, the Ashantehene paid his people according to their productivity based on a scale of fees and commissions and numerous other ways, stressing that there is nothing un-African in the idea of paying ministers differently. He said that is what happens on Wall Street and other places where people take the connection between productivity and incentive system seriously.

However he said the president should have abided by the constitutional stipulations, if there are such provisions bordering on the salaries of public officials like ministers. Yet he argued that having the constitution stipulating the salaries of the ministers is an "unwise" thing to do. Do we amend the constitution any time we want to change salary structure, he wondered.

Professor Wariboko argued that any person who plans not to steal public funds while in office has the right to secure for his or herself a competitive remuneration package. The president and the Finance Minister may have put this into consideration while negotiating the compensation package for the beleaguered World Bank official.