Tiers Of Govt: Minister Calls For Probe
Written by Adewale Ajayi

The Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Remi Babalola, has called for the probe of the accounts of the three tiers of government in the federation, because they did not justify the allocation collected from the federation account last year.

Speaking at the launching of two books entitled, The Business Angle as a Missionary written by Professor Pat Utomi and Keeping in Faith written by Kola Olutimeyin, to mark Professor Utomi’s birthday, Mr. Babalola said that the economic melt down experienced last year, did not affect the three tiers of government because all of them got more than what they budgeted for, and wondered what they had done with the money.

He explained that the probe was necessary, because most tiers of government had blame their inability to perform on the economic meltdown.

Babalola noted that the $20 billion in reserve had been depleted and the reserve now stands at $6.2 billion, adding that there was the need to show what the money had been used for.

According to him, “the three tiers of government got more than they budgeted for in 2009, they got more money in 2009, the problem is what has the money been spent on?”

He stressed that the problem in Nigeria was inability to have a policy that can bail the economy out, saying “failure of the policy put in place and implementation of the policy are the bane of lack of improvement in the economy.”

Mr. Babalola urged people of goodwill to be interested in governance, adding that until the right people were in government, the nation cannot progress.

He explained that the high rate of poverty in the country was caused by high rate of unemployment, saying if the problem of unemployment was not given a proper attention, the crisis it might generate would be serious than that of Niger Delta area.

Corroborating his view Professor Utomi said Nigeria economy was not improving and it had continued to record zero percentage of growth in the last 15 years.

http://www.tribune.com.ng/sat/index.php/news/249-tiers-of-govt-minister-calls-for-probe.html

when some of these ministers or people in government come out and say the truth it baffles me that they are actually cognicent that nigeria can't progress with the current crop of leaders, but refuse to change. I then begin to wonder if some are trying to do something to change government but are just not able because of the force backing those perpetuating the bad government.