Bishop urges FG to monitor budget implementation

The Catholic Bishop of Ekiti Diocese, Most Rev. Felix Ajakaiye, has advised the Federal Government to ensure the implementation of the 2017 budget in the interest of national development. Ajakaiye gave this advice in an interview with the Newsmen in Lagos on Wednesday. He further urged the government to ensure the monitoring of the budget implementation. “Any budget that does not address the plight of the people practically is meaningless; most times, we have planned budget on paper, but bad implementation is what we experience.

“There is the need for discipline and monitoring in this regard, otherwise, we cannot progress as a people and as a nation,’’ he said. The cleric urged the Federal Government to implement the report of the 2014 National Conference to avoid all these man-made challenges in Nigeria.

“We need to do things right for things to be right with us; true justice must be upheld before we can have sincere and lasting peace as well as development,’’ he added. Ajakaiye, who condemned the increasing rate of kidnapping in the country, urged the government to help in securing the release of some school children, who were recently abducted in the state. “I am sad that various crimes are being committed daily, but no arrests, even where there are, no thorough investigations and prosecutions; I appeal to the abductors of the children to release them. ”

To date, our cherished children, the students of Lagos Model Secondary School, Igbonla, Epe, Lagos State, have been in captivity for more than two weeks now. “It is very sickening that there are people being abducted daily, but no positive steps to address the situation. “Both the executive and the legislature are busy sorting out the 2017 budget, which should have been in operation before now,’’ he said. He urged Nigerians to promote and protect the unity of the country rather than work towards its disintegration. According to him, there cannot be progress in an atmosphere of injustice and threats to lives. “Every Nigerian has the right to reside and work in any part of the country,’’ he said.

CREDIT: VANGUARD