Expdonaloaded News; Buhari’s lamentation on ‘empty treasury’

The state of Nigeria’s treasury at the exit of the Goodluck Jona­than administration has been a subject of intense speculations in the past couple of weeks. Last week, President Muhammadu Bu­hari told Nigerians that he inherited a country with “virtually an empty trea­sury” from his predecessor. Speak­ing with State House correspondents, he explained that his administration could be seriously hampered by a debt overhang running into billions of dollars.
He stopped short of revealing the exact amount of debt in question, and assured Nigerians that he would do his best to salvage the country from the brink of collapse. The report of the Transition Committee headed by Mallam Ahmed Joda, however, in­dicated that the Goodluck Jonathan government left behind a staggering N7 trillion deficit.post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com..
The former ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has swiftly refuted the president’s claim, de­scribing it as an “excuse” for the pres­ent government not to fulfill its cam­paign promises. The former Minister of National Planning, Dr. Abubakar Suleiman, added that the Jonathan administration left $30 billion in the treasury.
The claims and counter-claims on the state of the national treasury are far from over. There is, however, no doubt that the financial status of Nigeria and most of its component states is far from healthy. The Federal Government and many of the states are virtually insolvent, as they often have to go a-borrowing to meet their obligations, including payment of their workers’ salaries and pensions.
The poor financial situation of the country apparently worsened in the final months of the Jonathan govern­ment due to a combination of factors, among them, lack of prudent man­agement of resources, outright fiscal recklessness and the plummeting oil prices in the international market. The net effect of these factors is the cur­rent cash crunch which has culminat­ed in the state’s inability to meet their financial obligations.
It is, however, heartening that the President has promised to recover stolen funds. He should constantly keep this promise in view. He has also warned that the era of financial recklessness and immunity is over. He must remain alert to ensure that this percolates down to all public of­fice holders in the country.
The president should be remind­ed that he will be judged by how he is able to turn things around for the good of the citizens. Playing the blame game may not quicken the quest for good governance. Nigeria could well be facing a national finan­cial emergency at both federal and state levels. The situation calls for earnest efforts to restructure and di­versify the economy, as well as adopt cost cutting measures such as the reduction of the present high cost of governance. These will help to make funds available for essential services and projects. In the maze of corrup­tion and profligacy in which Nigeria found itself in the run up to the gen­eral elections, the national treasury is bound to be worse for it.
We urge the president to focus his attention on stemming the country’s drift to insolvency. With the Stephen Oronsaye report on the restructuring of the Public Service and the Joda Transition Committee report, he does not need to grope in the dark on what to do to bring about the ‘change’ he promised. These two reports are good guides on the problems plagu­ing different sectors of the economy and what can be done to solve them. Nigerians know that these problems exist, and they are not insurmount­able.
Even if past administrations had turned deaf ears to the demands of the people that the problems should be addressed, President Buhari should realise that the people rely on him to solve them and bring about positive change in the country.
He should eschew the tendency to play to the gallery on the shortcom­ings of the past administration and remain focused on efforts to trans­form the country for the better. He cannot afford to fail.

Click photo to download; but you lied to me by Expdona aka finish gravity

Expdonaloaded blog;Click the photo to download aboki wey d suya by Expdona aka finish gravity