“In the first place, distinguished colleagues, we passed a budget for 2016 and we envisaged the situation we’ve found ourselves and we believed that the best thing to do was to increase the budget for 2016 so as to reflate the economy, but we are almost in the final quarter and yet no releases are being made.
“I think the best thing to do at this point, Your Excellency, distinguished colleagues, is for the government to consciously release as much money as possible into the economy.
“Yes, we are saying there is no money; the oil price has dropped but we were also told that through the TSA, we have about N3 trillion somewhere. We were also told that the former Minister of Petroleum returned $20 million.
“We were also told that politicians have returned several billions of naira, dollars and pounds. It is either that this is not true or that the money is somewhere and if it is not true, someone needs to apologise to us and state the correct thing and if it is true, this money has to be released to contractors so that contractors can go to work and those in the construction industry will be paid and then they will pay the school fees of their children and money will circulate.
“If we have money in the economy, I am sure that shortly, we will also find some relief.
“Secondly, the president needs to look at his cabinet. He has to put square pegs in square holes. Your Excellency, distinguished colleagues, Udo Udoma is my friend, an accomplished lawyer for that matter but in fairness to him, I believe he can do better in another ministry especially like trade and investment, certainly not budget and planning.
“The Minister of Finance could do much better in another ministry also. At this critical time, we need somebody who is more experienced to man the Ministry of Finance so that we are able to coordinate the strategies for this recovery.
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