According to her, all her actions were based on schedule of duties and instruction from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, under whose administration she served. Her counterpart then in the solid minerals and later education ministries, Oby Ezekwesili, said she had no regrets over actions taken while in office. She, however, faulted the waiver allegedly allowed by Obasanjo in financing the projects.

At the beginning of her testimony, Okonjo-Iweala pleaded with the committee to excuse her from responding to any question on World Bank because it would be against the rule of the bank, noting that her role in the ministry in respect of the NIPP contracts had nothing to do with award of contracts but disbursement of funds.

"I was minister from 2003 to June 2006 and so I would answer questions during the period and not outside that period. I want to state categorically that my discussion will not involve the contract but disbursement of funds.

"The responsibility for the contracts lies with the Ministry of Power and they are responsible for that. The NIPP was formed initially to deal with the implementation of the seven power stations in the Niger Delta. The amount of $2.5 billion was to be set aside to target 2000MW by 2007 because the whole country was held hostage by the power sector" , she said.

The former minister further added: "The idea was to use the gas in the area and fire the projects. During the first half of 2006, it was also the time I was working on the debt relief for the country and I was travelling to negotiate the debt relief, and because of this, I was not frequent at many meetings. It took me outside of my duty stations at Abuja quite a lot.

"Records are still at the Finance Ministry. In addition to looking at money, they should look at the technical issues like where the right technical approach taken to ensure that the siting of the plants and if after there would be the right power as a concerned Nigerian. The power sector had its normal share in the budget. I was responsible for the construction of the budgets."

The World Bank MD said most of the funds were released for the NIPP project after she had left the Ministry of Finance as minister but said the project was as a result of an agreement between the Federal Government and the states and local governments as on how to utilise the excess crude oil account.

"The former President said there was an agreement with the governors that the excess crude funds should be used for pressing needs like power and roads.

"Since the idea has been put together by the technical people, they said it was good and that the money should be on power. I also recall that it was also an idea to repay some of the debts.

And I recall that the area of power was sent to the National Assembly. I also recall that the plan was to take the money and refund it after. But since I left, I don't know or can't recall what has happened" , she said.

She insisted that the notion that she gave out money was false: "When you say that I gave out money or appropriated money; no minister of finance gives out money. It is not my right to give out money. According to finance and regulatory laws, the Ministry of Finance is responsible for preparing budgets to the National Assembly and also payments.

"We also have a due process to make the processes and procedures very clear. When we took over, it was not very clear. We started the publishing of the revenue of all tiers of government. We also set up in place measures to have a Due Process Certification."

She also refuted the claim that she was the chief accounting officer for the project. Her words: "The Minister of Finance can't be accounting officer for Power and Steel or any other ministry. I want to repeat that I knew nothing about the tendering of the contracts. We were not the accounting officers..."

The former minister told the panel that in allowing waivers for the NIPP projects from Due Process office, she merely acted on instruction from the former president who acted on the request of the former Minister of Power and Steel, Senator Liyel Imoke. "Well, of course you said you have evidence from the present finance minister. Because we needed a documentation, we could not pay without due process certificate, a waiver proposal was presented to us from the former minister of power and it was also sent to the CBN and the ministry. I received an instruction from the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to pay.

She said only the sum of $857 million was paid in respect of the projects during her period out of the $3.5 billion alleged to have been paid to contractors.

Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, who also appeared before the committee yesterday, said since the NIPP projects had failed to yield results, the states and local governments were expecting a refund of their money.

On her part, the former minister of education and solid minerals and now World Bank Vice President for the African Region, Ezekwesili, said she had no regrets over her action while she was in charge of due process office. She also faulted the waiver allowed by Obasanjo, saying that it was not part of due process laws. "I did not expect waiver and that was why I was considered uncompromisable and called names. I have no regret over any action I took while in office because I stood for the truth and because of the way things went that is why you are all here and if we don't follow due process, you will have more panels like this", she said.