Both Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Chief Olu Adeniji, initially Finance and Foreign Affairs Ministers were approved for dollar-denominated salaries by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the strength of their previous international jobs,( the former as Vice President at the World Bank and the latter as a United Nations Special Representative) before they were named ministers.

Answering a question from this reporter at the UN last week about the UNDP trust fund which was used to pay the dollar salaries in Nigeria, the UNDP administrator Kermal Davis stated that "capacity-building covered not only procedures and computers, but also included skilled people in the Government and other public systems."

He said very poor salary structures in some countries made it extremely hard to retain skilled people, and the primary approach of the UNDP was support for civil service reform so that better salaries could be paid to retain skilled people within the system. 

Davis's assistant, Gilbert Houngbo, head of UNDP's Africa Bureau, to whom Davis directed the question on the Nigeria dollar salary saga added that the "trust fund was not funded with UNDP money, but by the Nigerian Government and one important national donor.  The UNDP merely managed the fund, which had been set up for a temporary period and then phased out."

It was confirmed that the national donor that the UNDP officials referred to was the British government's international development agency-Department for International Development, better known DFID. 

Investigations revealed that DFID which played a crucial role in working with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to set up a reliable database on Nigeria's foreign debt at the inception of her tenure as Finance Minister, contributed substantial funds to the payment of her $240,000 salary through DFID's contribution to the Trust Fund managed by the UNDP.

Houngbo added that similar capacity-building initiatives are currently on in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Liberia, Kenya and Ethiopia. He said matter-of-factly there are African experts abroad who should be encouraged to return home and help their countries. For instance he said there are more than 4000 Nigerian doctors in the US alone. 

But there were concerns expressed during the dollar salary controversy on whether a foreign source ought to be paying the salaries of Nigerian ministers. Questions were raised then on potential conflicts of interests that was inherent in such arrangements.

Davis noted that the UNDP had an approach to helping civil service reform that included facilitating the return of migrants.  One of the most important things one could do was to help such migrants return home or let skilled professionals stay in the country.

The UNDP administrator noted that in African countries "capacity-building, at both the local and national levels, remained the top challenge, and that was where the United Nations, including the UNDP, had a key role to play."

According to him the excellent leadership in the ministries of many countries was characterized by a new “can-do, results-oriented and pragmatic” attitude. But then capacity remained weak in terms of overall administration. He said the focus of the UNDP was on the capacity of African Governments to deal with the global economy and foreign investment, and to negotiate optimal contracts with foreign investors that were truly beneficial to their respective countries.

After joining the Obasanjo administration in 2003, Okonjo-Iweala was paid $240,000 and the then Foreign Affairs Minister Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji was paid $120,000. Later in 2005, Dr. Ikemba Iweala, the former Finance Minister's wife disclosed that Okonjo-Iweala had stopped taking the dollar salary.  

DFID, the British government development is the arm of the UK Government that manages Britain's aid to poor countries and works to get rid of extreme poverty. Headed by a Cabinet minister, who is a senior minister in the UK Government. The agency prides its main duty as that of reducing poverty around the world, with two headquarters (in London and East Kilbride, near Glasgow) and 64 offices overseas. DFID also has over 2500 staff, almost half of whom work abroad.

Dr. Iweala had depended on DFID to help build a database to ascertain Nigeria's foreign debt and also to help move towards the negotiation of a deal that lead to the canceling of parts of the national debt. In 2006/2007, DFID claims that it had helped Nigeria to save about 850M Pounds which would now be spent on roads and power. That was made possible through its provision of technical assistance to the Nigerian budget office in order to improve the country's budget system.

Similarly the DFID said it spent about 1.05B Pounds in the same 2006/7 on poverty reduction in Africa, with special emphasis 16 priority countries on the continent including Nigeria.