Ptresident Muhammadu Buhari has ousted Director-General of the Budget Office, Mr. Yahaya Gusau, following the embarrassing discrepancies noted in the 2016 appropriation bill before the National Assembly.
Following this development, the President has approved the appointment of Mr. Tijjani Abdullahi to replace Gusau,the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, has said.
Although no reason was given for the development, observers believed that Gasau was fired because of the various discrepancies that had been identified in the 2016 budget proposals currently before the National Assembly.
A top government source, who confided to The PUNCH, said although Gusasu could not be blamed for the errors and padding of the budget, the buck stopped at his table as the director-general.
The source stated, “His removal has to do with errors and discrepancies in the budget. I can assure you that more heads will roll.”
The Presidency sources had, on February 6, alleged that a budget mafia planned to scuttle innovations introduced by the current administration into the budget by inflating figures.
The mafia was alleged to have proposed a budget of N9.7tn for capital and overhead spending, excluding personnel cost, as against the Presidency’s initial estimate of about N8tn.
The group was said to have proposed N3tn as overheads alone out of the N9.7tn, a figure the Presidency later slashed to N163bn.
The ministry of budget and national planning had also promised to investigate and punish those responsible for the errors and strange figures found in the budget, which was presented to the National Assembly by Buhari in December, 2015.
The errors had delayed the passage of the budget with the federal legislature saying the February 25 deadline it set for its approval was no more feasible.
The Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, had said, “We have not postponed it indefinitely; we are saying that with the current developments, the February 25 deadline we gave ourselves may not be realistic.”
According to Adesina, Abdullahi, who succeeded Gusau, is a fellow of the Certified National Accountants of Nigeria and a banker of repute with experience in managing public finance.
Source: The Punch
