Again, lawmaker advises Buhari to sack 3 cabinet members

Senator Dino Melaye has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to "rejig" his economic team for an effective implementation of the 2017 budget.

Senator Melaye had in September 2016 called for the sack the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; Minister of finance, Udo Udoma, Minister of budget and national planning; and Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over Nigeria's economic recession.

Speaking in Abuja, Senator Melaye said except President Buhari "puts square pegs in square holes", the 2017 budget would not yield the desired result.

The Kogi West lawmaker called on the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to prevent corruption in the procurement process for federal government contracts and projects.

His words: "We must build an effect cost containment measure. Most case corruption in this country boils down to the procurement process. Inflation of contracts, change of figures all boils down to the procurement process.

"The Bureau of Public Procurement or Enterprise must become born again if our procurement process will become holy. The BPE must make sure that a project that is supposed to cost N8 billion would not be approved at Federal Executive Council (FEC) for N64 billion.

"Also, we may have a beautiful document, Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) or budget but if we have bad managers of the economy, we will land where we have been landing all these years.

"I still ask that for us to have effective budget implementation, revive our economy and bring us out of recession, Mr President (Buhari) must rejig his economic managers. He should put square pegs in square holes if we really want the proper implementation and success of the 2017 budget," Senator Melaye added.

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recently took a swipe at the 2017 budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying that the budget lacked the potentials to take Nigeria out of recession.