Nasarawa State Governor, Tanko Al-Makura, said that the 2016 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari has given Nigerians a sense of direction and hope.
Al-makura said the budgets indicated that next year would be “a year that will turn around a lot of things that were going was going haywire.”
he said: “I’m very impressed. I have not gone through the budget in details to know all the details regarding the allocations and programmes. But from the presentation you can see that there is direction in this country, there is hope in this country. When people are crying about dwindling situation and lack of resources in the country, you find that the budget has gone far beyond the expectation of a lot of people.
“This is indicating the fact that we have a purposeful government, we have a responsible government, a government that will ensure that it plugs all the holes of creating economic problem in the country. A government which will look into the actual problems of the people and solve them with all the accountability, sense of responsibility and prudence,” he said.
Al-Makura, who expressed optimism that the present budget is implementable, attributed the problem in the past governments to misapplication and outright maladministration of resources accruing to the country.
His words: “God willing, we will implement this budget because you have to be optimistic. All the potentials are there for effective utilization of resources. But what has been the problem in the past was misapplication and outright maladministration with regard to resources accruing to the country.
“Given the position and focus of Mr. President and his sense of accountability, he knows exactly what he is doing or saying when he makes a budget of that magnitude. It only goes to prove that all the corruption, all the stealing; all the squandering of riches that has been the lot of this country will be a thing of the past.
“Mr. President’s attention is much more on revenue generation in other sources. So, forget about the issue of the benchmark of the naira, the falling prices of oil in the international market, there are many other sources that this country can depend on to make us survive. We didn’t have oil in the 1960s, we had hide and skin, cocoa, groundnut and so many things.
“We are going back to the basis to ensure that every available opportunity for revenue generation will be tapped. What is more is that the President is really serious and concerned about revolutionizing the petroleum industry. You can see it from the news that the Kaduna will start refining oil this week.”
The governor also assured Nigerians that his state would key into the new drive by ensuring effective revenue generation in areas where it has comparative advantage.