The Centre for Social Justice has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint finance minister as soon as possible so as to prevent stagnation of the economy.
In a statement issued by its lead Director, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, the group said “The fact that has been repeatedly stated by a few officials of the new government is that there is a lot of work to be done to clean the misdeeds of the past.
“The volume and enormity of the work demands that more hands should be involved in the cleansing exercise. It cannot, therefore, be a justification for only one or two persons to carry the load of reforms.
“Nigeria is too big for only a few persons to think they can solve all the economic, political and social challenges alone.
“Even if the President is to wait until September, it is imperative that some critical sectors get ministers immediately. As of now, there is no economic policy directive to guide citizens and investors, and the economy seems to have stagnated.
“The naira is fast losing value by the day, while quoted stocks have lost a good part of their values. Investment decisions are delayed and the last budget implementation report that was published was for the second quarter of 2014.
“No one seems to know or members of the public have not been briefed on the implementation of the 2015 budget. And no one seems to be in charge of the preparation process of the 2016-2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the 2016 budget.
“We do not see the permanent secretaries in the appropriate ministries managing the processes that would resolve these afore-stated challenges.
“Hence the need for ministers in the finance and economy portfolios to steer the economic ship of state and move it away from running aground.”