President Bola Tinubu, according to the Presidency, is ready to collaborate closely with the National Assembly to reduce cost of governance.
Ajuri Ngelale, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, stated this on Monday’s Sunrise Daily on Channels Television.
The President, according to the spokesman, is certain he can reduce cost of governance and clean up federal spending.
“The President is working hand in hand with the National Assembly to see how we can also bring down the level of expenditure within the National Assembly, both on the books and off the books.
“What I mean by off the books without being controversial is that we know that there has been a history of the National Assembly injecting a lot of projects within MDAs that may not be suited to the function and roles of those Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), and the President is ready to do that,” he said.
The Presidential spokesman also said increasing revenue is a top-line priority for the Tinubu-led APC government but admitted it cannot be a swift solution.
“Increasing revenue is a top-line priority on his table, but it is not a one-strike solution. There are multiple elements to how he is going to do that – one of them is ensuring that we clean up federal expenditure in such a way that we don’t have the kinds of duplication that we have seen in the past when it comes to the expenditure in our ministries, departments, and agencies.
“The President has been very open about the fact that he is going to not only dust off the outside reports but that he is going to be the President that implements them. He has been clear about that,” Ajuri said.
He repeated President Tinubu’s Sunday statement that the nation cannot continue paying its debts with almost 90% of its revenue.
“Can we continue to service external debt with over 90 per cent of our revenue? It is a path to destruction, we cannot continue that. We have to make hard decisions. Poverty is not a shameful thing, but it is not acceptable. We must banish it,” Tinubu said at the opening ceremony of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) annual conference in Abuja.
Tinubu stated that his administration would implement difficult changes to raise the country’s standing, and that despite the possibility of painful early reforms, Nigeria must be prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to put the nation on a path of development.
