PHOTOS: Okonjo-iweala With Nigerian Delegates At Addis Ababa

Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, attended a conference in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

The embattled former Coordinator of the Economy, took to her Twitter handle, to announce her participation at the conference, with the theme ‘getting additional resources for women empowerment in Nigeria’

Okonjo-Iweala has faced series of allegations since the end of the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. The governor of Edo state, Adams Oshiomhole accused her of of illegally taking $1 billion from the Federation Account to prosecute the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

However, the criticism seems not to have affected her rating as she enjoyed the warm reception of Nigerian delegates at the conference.

Okonjo-Iweala is a globally renowned Nigerian economist best known for her two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria and for her work at the World Bank, including several years as one of its Managing Directors (October 2007 – July 2011).

In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. Subsequently, in 2012, she became one of three candidates in the race to replace World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the end of his term of office in June 2012. On 16 April 2012 it was announced that she had been unsuccessful in her bid for the World Bank presidency, having lost to the US nominee, Jim Yong Kim. This outcome had been widely anticipated. However, this was the first contested election for World Bank president after the demise in 2010 of the Gentlemen’s agreement that the US would appoint the World Bank president and Europe would appoint the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Okonjo confIn October 2005, she led the Nigerian team that struck a deal with the Paris Club, a group of bilateral creditors, to pay a portion of Nigeria’s external debt (US$12 billion) in return for an $18 billion debt write-off. Prior to the partial debt payment and write-off, Nigeria spent roughly US$1 billion every year on debt servicing, without making a dent in the principal owed. However, following years of mismanagement under her watch, the combined domestic and external debt of the Federal Government is in excess of $40 billion by the end of 2014. Add to this the fact that abandoned capital projects littered all over the country amount to over $50 billion. No word yet on other huge contingent liabilities. If oil prices continue to fall, it was said that Nigeria will soon have a heavy debt burden even with low debt to GDP ratio.

Okonjo-Iweala also introduced the practice of publishing each state’s monthly financial allocation from the federal government in the newspapers. This action went a long way in increasing transparency in governance. She was instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch and Standard & Poor’s. Nigeria is considered to have defaulted on its sovereign debt in 1983 (debt rescheduling is considered a type of default by rating agencies).