President Muhammadu Buhari, has on Thursday, September 15, maintained that his Ministers are not doing enough to manage Nigeria’s economy, advising all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to sit up and think outside the box in fixing the current economic challenges.
The President made this known, while speaking at a Ministerial Retreat on the Economy and the Budget, at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja.
He said, ”Indeed, the challenges we face in the current recession require ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, to deploy strategies that involve engaging meaningfully with the private sector, to raise the level of private sector investment in the economy as a whole.
“We are confident that the level of private investment will grow, as we are determined to make it easier to do business in Nigeria, by the reforms we are introducing under the auspices of the Presidential Committee on Ease of Doing Business,” Buhari said.
He noted, that the theme of the retreat, ‘Building Inter-Ministerial Synergy for Effective Planning and Budgeting in Nigeria,’ was very apt and timely, especially as ‘we are in the process of developing the 2017 Budget.’
According to sources, the President’s directive is coming at a time when there have been series of calls to reshuffle his cabinet, as most of his appointees have been accused of being incompetent.
Buhari Speaking further, decried that the Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies, had not benefited significantly from working together, and building consensus around common national objectives, thereby impending the development of the country.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, in her own remark, sympathised with Nigerians on the state of the economy, assuring that things would soon change for the better.
She said, “We did not anticipate the impact of the much awaited crisis, which of course is built on our revenue which is down significantly.
“We have a credible plan, and that plan is based on the need to invest in our infrastructure, and each of the Experts spoke on that.
“That is the only solution for Nigeria to take us out of this situation, and we are working on that,” Adeosun said.
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