India govt nominates finance minister for president - Channel NewsAsia
India govt nominates finance minister for president
Posted: 15 June 2012 2113 hrs
NEW DELHI - Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, under fire for his recent handling of the rapidly slowing economy, is to step down after being named Friday as the ruling coalition's candidate for president.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, led by Mukherjee's Congress Party, announced that the 77-year-old minister would be its nominee for the largely ceremonial post of Indian head of state which falls vacant in July.
"There is broad support for his candidature," Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi said in a statement at a meeting of UPA leaders at the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The nomination means Mukherjee will have to resign as finance minister, with television reports suggesting he might step down on June 24.
There was no immediate announcement regarding his likely successor.
Although the president is India's titular head of state, the post is largely ceremonial, with real executive power residing with the prime minister and the cabinet.
Indian presidents are selected by an electoral college comprising MPs from both houses of parliament and state legislatures.
The election will be held July 19.
The choice of who will succeed the incumbent president, Pratibha Patil, has exposed fresh cracks in the increasingly fractured coalition, with its partners clashing over which candidate to put forward.
"The UPA appeals to all political parties and all members of parliament and members of state legislative assemblies to support the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee," Gandhi said in her statement.
Mukherjee's nomination comes at a time of growing criticism of his handling of the economy, which has slowed dramatically at a time of stubbornly high inflation and a depreciating rupee.
"I don't think that I am the depository of all knowledge and and expertise in our government. In our party there are a number of people who can handle the difficult economic situation," Mukherjee told reporters after his nomination.
"The prime minister himself (Manmohan Singh) is an eminent economist and under his stewardship we will overcome the temporary crisis."
In the January-March period, the economy grew just 5.3 percent, its slowest quarterly expansion in nine years.
Earlier this week, Standard & Poor's warned India could be the first of the BRIC emerging economies to lose its investment-grade rating unless the Asian giant revives its growth and spurs reforms.
In April, the firm changed India's credit outlook to negative from stable, maintaining India's rating at "BBB-" but warning it faced at least a one-in-three chance of losing its status if its public finances worsened.
"BBB-" is just one notch above "junk", which carries an increased risk of default and would see India having to pay higher interest rates on its public borrowing.
- AFP/ir
Nigeria's finance minister orders fuel subsidy slow down - Reuters
By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's finance minister said on Thursday she had ordered a slow down to fuel subsidy payments to allow verification that they are for genuine deliveries, an effort to combat fraud costing it billions of dollars.
"I decided that we should slow down the payments until we verify ... that what we are paying is really being paid for genuine product delivered, to avoid the mistakes we made in the past," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a news conference.
Fuel shippers say they are facing delays at import terminals while their subsidy payments are scrutinised, and some private firms have halted deliveries, while others are relying on swaps for crude oil to receive payments.
Accountant-General Jonah Otunla, also at the conference, said the government had spent 1.44 trillion Nigerian naira in the first half of 2012, of which 1.036 trillion was on recurrent expenditure, the largest component of that being the fuel subsidy.
A parliamentary probe into the subsidy scheme released last month found it was riddled with fraud that had cost Nigeria $6.8 billion in just three years -- equal to a quarter of the national budget. It was one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of Africa's top energy producer.
Okonjo-Iweala said she had come to the realisation that the subsidy must be slowed after paying out 451 billion naira -- more than half of the 888 billion naira the country budgeted for this year -- just on arrears for last year.
"It was at that point in time I decided," she said. "We will not be stampeded to make payment until we verify that what we are paying is correct ... We are taking it very cautiously."
She added that only 17 billion naira had been released against 2012 fuel deliveries as a result. Continued...
TEXT-Fitch raises ratings of sbp dpr finance company - Reuters
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