Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Wednesday denied deepening the row between the Executive and the Legislature over the 2013 budget amendment proposals.
National Assembly members on Tuesday accused the minister of pitting them against the executive, saying her comments on the issue amounted to blackmail against them.
Expressing their displeasure with the minister, members of the House of Representatives particularly summoned her to appear before their Joint Committees on Appropriation/Finance and Legislative Compliance next Tuesday to "throw light on her utterances."
However, in an interview with journalists at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Okonjo-Iweala said the Executive arm of government had a good working relationship with the Legislative arm.
According to her, the Executive will, at all times, work with the lawmakers in a collegial manner to ensure that the problems over the 2013 budget are resolved as soon as possible.
She said, "It is absolutely untrue, we are not pitting anyone against anyone, we have been working with Senators and House of Reps in a very collegial manner, we are working with them. The use of that headline was mischievous.
"We are working with them because we do have to solve the problems that will enable us to move forward and it is being done in a collegial manner. So, this is why the media has to be careful about the type of headlines it puts on.
"Nobody is trying to pit anyone against anyone. We will work with the Senate and the National Assembly in a collegial manner to solve the problems before us in budget 2013 and I am full of confidence that they will indeed be solved."
The minister also denied a statement credited to her that the country's economy would shut down if the National Assembly did nothing about the 2013 budget.
Declaring that the challenges facing the country were short term, the minister confirmed that the Federal Government would not be able to pay salaries even though the economy remained robust.
She explained that the development in a way did not mean that the economy would shut down.
She said, "At no point in time did I say that the government is going to shut down or the country will shut down; the economy is strong, we are robust, we have our short term challenges.
"To deal with reduced revenue due to the issue of oil theft which Mr. President is focusing on and is solving, there is a committee of governors that he and the Vice President have set up to try and deal with the issue. We are confident that we will be dealing with it and bringing several pipelines that have shut down back into play when we work with the oil companies."
The Punch
Whether she has denied or not, sooner or later te truth will definately come out so let's all keep our fingers crossed.