TheCable

Presidency has described as “inaccurate” reports that the office of the vice-president was involved in secret recruitment at the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Addressing state house correspondents on Thursday, Laolu Akande, senior special assistant to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, said the current administration was working towards sanitising the recruitment process and making it more transparent.

The reports, which said relatives and cronies of top government officials, including President Muhammadu Buhari and Osinbajo, were secretly employed, had sparked outrage among Nigerians.

But describing the information as “inaccurate”, Akande said the government was focused on managing the economy effectively.

“These reports are inaccurate. What we heard is that government is working to ensure that we develop going forward in more transparent process. We are committed in going forward to ensure that some of these procedures are refined, fine-tuned and made to become more transparent,” he said.

“So, our stand is that the management of the economy is a government responsibility.”

Akande also sought to justify the decision of the government to exclude the private sector from the current economic management team headed by Osinbajo.

He also said that the private sector had not been totally excluded, saying the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), and other stakeholders, had been engaged by the government at different times.

“We have to understand that the attitude of this presidency is to consider the management of the economy as a government responsibility,” he said.

“It is not something that this government believes should be done by bringing in some of the private interests into the economic team to take a decision that they will be directly involved with.

“But we have not totally excluded the private sector. For instance, we meet on a constant basis with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). There have also been meetings with arms of the economic sector of the country. There have been meetings with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and some other economic interests with companies, making presentations.

“But generally, this thing is a government team and the team has been able to set out before the budget trying to figure out what the budget ought to focus on. After the budget was presented and eventually signed, there was also the publication of the strategic implementation plan which was produced in a reader friendly format.

“All of these are the outcomes of what economic management team does and it is also in the team that you have the heap of the whole physical and monetary policy and don’t forget that the monetary policy is always the duty and responsibility of the Central Bank which is an economic arm of government.”

Editor’s note: This copy has been corrected.