Prof. Kunle Wahab,a former Special Adviser to the president on Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU), has tasked Nigerians on the need to monitor the proper implantation of the budget.
He said this on Saturday in Abuja while reacting to the recent signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Wahab told newsmen that failure of appropriate implementation of past budgets oftentimes arosebecause of the absence of proper monitoring by all concerned.
He said that all the projects the Federal Government set to carry out using the 2016 budget were all commendable but that the responsibility to ensure that they are all implemented lay with citizens.
“Everyone is government and not only those in governance, what can each one of us do to profitably execute the intentions of the government?
“Everybody said they were waiting for the blueprint of the government, well now you have got it.
“Look at it and ensure that they do what they said they will do.
“The good thing is the ministers have all agreed to be queried at one point or the other and even the National Assembly says it will abide by what is in the budget.’’
He also charged the opposition to be on the lookout to criticise the implementation of the budget constructively to propel the government to do the right thing.
He said that the lateness in assenting to the provisions of the budget was not in any way going to hamper its implementation.
Wahab, however, said that machineries should be put in motion to begin execution of policies.
Mr Ahmed Abdu, Acting Director General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), said that the bureau would be very instrumental in the implementation of the budget.
He said that it would also help to ensure its judicious use.
According to him, the 2016 budget though larger than that of previous years, would provide infrastructure to the people.
President Buhari on Friday signed the 2016 appropriation bill of N6.06 trillion into law based on an oil benchmark of 38 dollars per barrel.