Eromosele Ebhomele
Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayoseose
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state on Tuesday called for the withdrawal of the 2016 budget from the National Assembly as sacking government officials for allegedly padding the budget was not enough.
The Federal Government had sacked some top officials of parastatals over the scandal, but Fayose insists that the budget should be represented instead of sacking and appointing new officials.
Governor Fayose also queried the request by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, for a ‘special funding arrangement for public media organisations to enable them to scale up their sensitisation campaign against insurgency in the North-East’.
Instead, the governor said Nigerians need further explanations as to why special fund would be needed on Boko Haram that he (Lai Mohammed) said had already been defeated.
In a release issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said what the controversial 2016 budget required was a holistic approach, not just making one person scapegoat, adding that: “the President must take total responsibility for the budget scam and apologise to Nigerians for the government’s embarrassment caused by the display of gross incompetence.”
Governor Fayose maintained that padding of the budget with strange figures, now being denied by ministers, was a clear intention to steal in advance.
President Muhammadu Buhari
He added that “though it is good that the President listened to my call for the punishment of those responsible for the
national embarrassment, mere sacking of officers at the Budget Office will not remove the stain splashed on Nigeria by the shameful budget.”
He likened blaming an imaginary ‘budget mafia’ for the padding of the budget to a driver blaming someone else for not applying the brake when it should have been applied, adding: “the bulk stops on the President’s table, he can’t blame anyone apart …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
