In less than eight days to the inauguration of a new administration, Muhammadu Buhari, president-elect, has lamented that his transition committee is not getting the desired cooperation from the Federal Government’s committee.
Buhari said the Federal Government may have misunderstood his intention of setting up the transition committee and the terms of reference given to it, saying that it has refused to provide the committee the information it needed to carry out its duty.
Buhari spoke just as Ahmed Joda, the chairman of the APC transition committee, complained that the government’s committee headed by Vice President Namadi Sambo refused to provide them information to work with and therefore had to rely on their own initiative.
Receiving the interim report of the committee at the Defence House, Buhari said he was disappointed that “the incoming government was misunderstood”, adding that “it is not that we are preparing for indictment. We are trying to get a starting point, where exactly are we going to start from.
“We have seen the debt profile now and the performance of the economy. The question is what can we do about it especially the urgent ones like social security and lack of fuel in the country and fraud? The list is endless. I thank you for what you have done and I hope that the subsequent submission by the government will make your job easier and more efficient and tell us where to begin from.
“What we expected was for the outgoing government to make a presentation to this committee and for this committee to study the document and make submission to the incoming government.
“For your simple mindedness, you went to work. But unfortunately, this committee is accused of being a Federal Government. From then on, this committee was constrained to take this initiative and breaking into various sub-committees and assigned various task to study the most important issues nationwide and see what they can put on record.
“I thank you very much for this effort which you have made and I want to assure you that we will find time to read your initial report and when the government decides to finally present to you their own records, you will study them and merge with the report of the various committees and present to the incoming government.
“My expectation was that each ministry makes its own presentations. The politicians know that they are going while the bureaucrats who do the jobs know they are staying.
“They are the ones who are going to do the job and they are going to be available to help cross check the information. I think that this research you have made will help the incoming government to cross check the information on paper given by the outgoing government”.
Speaking, Joda said they had to prepare the first interim report without the input from the government, adding that they are expecting the government to make a presentation to the committee on Friday (today).
