NAIJAFEED

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Trial of ex-governor James Ibori gets rowdy - Police called in

Police were called to a London court yesterday, where former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, was due to be sentenced over a fraud involving $250 million of state funds.

He will learn of how many years he will remain behind bars today.

Three police vans, five cars and a helicopter were deployed to Southwark Crown Court on the first day of a two-day sentencing hearing, after reports of a disturbance inside, an AFP correspondent said.

Witnesses said supporters of Ibori, who was governor between 1999 and 2007, became loud and aggressive when they were excluded from the packed courtroom.

“We were there to provide assistance because it was oversubscribed that there were just too many people to get in,” a police spokeswoman told AFP, adding that order had been quickly restored.

A court spokesman confirmed there had been overcrowding and that the hearing had been delayed.

Ibori had faced corruption charges in Nigeria and in Britain, where he was pursued by a police unit which investigates the activities of foreign officials who seek to launder stolen assets in Britain.

Scotland Yard said during his two terms as governor, Ibori “systematically stole funds from the public purse, secreting them in bank accounts across the world”, in a fraud worth $250 million.

Despite earning less than $25,000 a year, his portfolio included a £2.2 million house in the upmarket London district of Hampstead and a £3.2 million mansion in Johannesburg’s wealthy Sandton district in South Africa.

He owned a $20 million jet and a fleet of armoured Range Rovers and spent money on fees for exclusive British boarding schools and expensive hotels.

In February, Ibori pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder money, five of money laundering and one of obtaining a property transfer by deception.

He also admitted conspiracy to defraud, make false instruments, and one count of money laundering linked to a $37 million share fraud surrounding the sale of shares in Nigerian company V Mobile.

This Day

Former Delta state governor James Ibori pleads guilty to money laundering

Video interview with James Ibori about corruption charges

Nigerian government decides against 100 percent subsidy removal

The President Goodluck Jonathan administration has quietly bowed to pressure from the Nigerian public and withdrawn its decision to implement a total fuel subsidy removal policy, at least for now.

In the 2012 budget signed by President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday, a provision of N888 billion was made for fuel subsidy which he admitted was due to pressure from the public.

His words: "The initial 2012 Budget proposal assumed full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. However, after listening to the voice of Nigerians, we opted for partial subsidy removal.

This meant that we had to review the budget's revenue and expenditure projections to make some provisions amounting to N888 billion in the budget."

Many Nigerians had engaged in panic buying of petrol at the beginning of this month in anticipation of an announcement of the full subsidy removal by the Federal Government, going by its earlier agreement with organised labour.

Although the president did not categorically say that the policy of 100 per cent subsidy removal has been abandoned, sources at the corridors of power said "there are no serious discussion in that regard anymore" and that the trouble that the administration passed through in January over fuel subsidy was not one that should be desired so soon.

Going by the N888 billion provision for fuel subsidy in the 2012, the president and his National Economic Management Team are likely to face another huddle over the issue in no distant future.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, claimed that over N1.3 trillion was spent on fuel subsidy in 2011, precipitating a public outcry and a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives.

State Commissioners of Finance have already rejected the deductions made in that respect for the months of January and February and have advised their governors to protest it before President Jonathan as they argued that the figures don't add up.

They pointed that if about N1.3 trillion was spent in 2011 when a litre of Premium Motor Spirit, petrol, was sold at N 65, why would the subsidy paid by government increase, rather than decrease in 2012 when a litre of petrol sells at N97.

Vanguard

Video - Fuel subsidy protests turn violent in Nigeria

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Jim Yong Kim winning the bid for World Bank president

I would like to congratulate Dr Jim Yong Kim on his emergence as President of the World Bank Group. I look forward to working with him, staff and stakeholders of the World Bank Group for the benefit of poor people around the world. Their plight is at the heart of the mandate of the institution and we must never lose sight of that.

With regard to the selection process, it is clear to me that we need to make it more open, transparent and merit-based. We need to make sure that we do not contribute to a democratic deficit in global governance.

Nevertheless, by our participation we have won important victories. We have shown what is possible. Our credible and merit-based challenge to a long-standing and unfair tradition will ensure that the process of choosing a World Bank president will never be the same again. The struggle for greater equity and fairness has reached a critical point and the hands of the clock cannot be turned back.

I congratulate Dr Jose Antonio Ocampo for being a worthy participant and for his decision to withdraw his candidacy in my favour.

I am proud of Africa for displaying great unity in supporting my candidacy. I am proud of my country Nigeria for standing by me. I want to thank all the African leaders, but particularly President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for his resolute support, along with other leaders - President Boni Yayi of Benin Republic, President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d'Ivoire, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Chair of the African Union, Mr Jean Ping. Africa has stood for the right principles throughout these processes. I am proud to be African.

I want to thank other developing countries who supported my candidacy. I also thank the Nigerian public, the National Assembly and the Nigerian and international media for their analyses and support. I am deeply grateful to the numerous groups and individuals in different parts of the world that worked so hard and so passionately in my support.

It was a worthwhile battle. Now it is time to move on and contribute to the search for solutions to the many developmental challenges that confront the world.

Daily Trust

Video - Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks to CNN's Richard Quest about her bid for World Bank top job

Monday, April 16, 2012

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala concedes to Jim Yong Kim for World Bank top job

The World Bank has named a US doctor, Jim Yong Kim, as its next president, despite criticism of the selection process by his only rival for the job.

While the US nominee faced a challenge for the first time ever, the World Bank's most powerful shareholders, the US, Europe and Japan, came out in support on Monday for the Korean-American who now holds the powerful job of doling out money to developing countries.

Before the meeting of World Bank directors, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance minister, herself a veteran of the institution, criticised the way the US has held a lock on the position since the organisation was launched.

"You know this thing is not really being decided on merit," she said in Abuja. "It is voting with political weight and shares and therefore the United States will get it."

A third candidate, Jose Antonio Ocampo, the Colombian former finance minister, dropped out on Friday also complaining that the selection process was purely political and not merit-based.

There had been some hopes from critics of the bank that the powerful emerging BRICS economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - might coalesce around Okonjo-Iweala. But those were scotched when Moscow on Friday publicly endorsed Kim.

'Democratic tenets'

By a tacit agreement dating to the sister institutions' founding, the US has always chosen the World Bank head while Europe supplies the leader of the International Monetary Fund.

But like the leadership succession last year at the IMF, the race to head the Bank has sparked muscle-flexing by newly empowered emerging economies and poorer countries which have called for a more open process based on merit.

"We have come some way because it's no longer in the smoke-filled rooms of Europe and the US that the spoils are shared between the IMF and World Bank positions, between those two centres of power," Pravin Gordhan, South African finance minister, said on Monday.

"This time the invitation was open to anybody to nominate a candidate. [But] "the question is whether the process subsequent to that ... has followed through on basic democratic tenets."

South Africa endorsed Okonjo-Iweala's quest to succeed president Robert Zoellick, the former US diplomat who will leave at the end of his five-year term in June.

Health experience

The executive board met on Monday to select Kim, whom the Bank said was chosen by "consensus".

The position is crucial for much of the developing world. The president oversees a staff of 9,000 economists, development experts and other policy specialists, and a loan portfolio that hit $258bn in 2011, including $43bn in new loans and grants.

Despite the grumbling from outside the US-Europe axis, the appointmemnt of Kim, a medical doctor with deep experience fighting HIV/AIDS in developing countries and head of prestigious Dartmouth College, marks a significant change from the American bankers and diplomats who have been tapped to lead the bank in the past.

But critics worry Kim's experience is not broad enough to handle all of the fields the World Bank deals with, from infrastructure development to environmental protection.

Kim has travelled to around a dozen countries to introduce himself, however, apparently convincingly enough to earn solid respect.

Aljazeera

Related stories:

New World Bank president to be known today

A successor to the out-going President of the World Bank, Mr. Robert Zoellick, will emerge Monday between 5pm and 7pm (12 noon and 2pm Washington DC time), when the results will be announced.

This will be preceded by the gathering of the 25-member executive board of the bank from 3pm (10am Washington DC time) to pick Zoellick's successor.

The race for the presidency of the Bretton Woods institution had been narrowed down to two candidates - Nigeria's Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American Physician and United States' nominee - after the former Colombian finance minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo, withdrew his candidacy at the weekend.

In fact, Ocampo had thrown his weight behind the Nigerian finance minister, describing her as an "excellent candidate". Zoellick's tenure expires on June 30.

The US, which is the bank's largest shareholder, traditionally picks the bank's president. The country, Europe and Japan have 54 per cent of the votes.

Under an informal arrangement, in return, Europe appoints a European as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a sister Bretton Woods' institution. It is currently run by Frenchwoman, Christine Lagarde.

According to the World Bank's Articles, the president is the chief operating officer of the bank and conducts, under the direction of the executive directors, the ordinary business of the bank. The bank's president is also responsible for the organisation, appointment and dismissal of the officers and staff, subject to the general control of the executive directors.

US' choice of Kim has been greeted with mixed feelings. Some commentators argued that he lacks experience in boosting economic growth, a key part of the bank's mission.

Observers had been curious that Kim had not even appeared on any major American interview. It had been suggested that his handlers were worried that he might make a slip, which would bring the issue of merit to the fore once again.

"That is why they have resulted to issuing press releases about his visits to different parts of the world," one of them noted.

However, Okonjo-Iweala, who had also served as managing director of the multilateral institution, has the support of other emerging economies.

The Bretton Woods institution, founded in 1944 has 187-member countries. US, France, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom - who are the five largest shareholders - appoint five executive directors, while China, Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia each elects its own executive director, with other executive directors elected by the other member countries.

This is the first presidential election with 25 voting members as one more member was added on November 1, 2010. Similarly, this is the first time that a candidate from a developing nation is challenging a US nominee for the plum job.

Okonjo-Iweala when interviewed by the World Bank board last week promised to tackle global poverty and address issues of job creation if elected.

She also advised the US to end the long tradition of an American always heading the Bretton Woods institution, saying that the decision on who leads the global development institution should go to the candidate with the best skills for the job.

The finance minister had also dismissed the argument by some US politicians that the American country would stop financing the World Bank if a non-American took the reins of the institution. She said she would use her "persuasive powers" to convince Congress to keep funds flowing to the World Bank.

On his part, Kim, had during the interview session with the board of directors of the bank, said that he would not hesitate to question the status quo and do his best to help the world's poorest countries.

Kim had said: "I would bring rigour; objectivity and a focus on data that help all of us define and achieve our shared vision of securing strong economic growth and delivering greater opportunity for the world's poor."

It has been a widespread belief that the strategy the US adopted for the World Bank presidency had played down merit, contrary to the standards and principles which the multilateral institution champions.

Analysts however expressed the belief that the major thing that Nigeria had achieved in the whole process was that- with the issue of merit in the fore, candidates from the developing economies for subsequent elections, will be strengthened the more, to come forward and push for merit.

More importantly, they added, the campaign had sensitised the world and it would be difficult for the US to retain the position, based on power politics.

This Day

Video - Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks to CNN's Richard Quest about her bid for World Bank top job

Nigeria's finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in the running for chief of World Bank

New York Times supports Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for World Bank president