IT'S TIME TO SEPARATE THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS IN CHANGE GOVERNMENT !

ZION B-BC NEWSLETTER.

A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church, Kpeyegyi, Abuja Nigeria. [VOL. 5. NO 131. 14 th Febuary, 2016.} “…ONLY The Truth, Will Set You Free! (John.8:32).

IT’S TIME TO SEPARATE THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS IN CHANGE GOVERNMENT!

The universal adage which states that one should not judge a book by its cover, has played out negatively in respect of the 2016 Appropriation Bill presented to the National Assembly in December, 2015, with much candor but on scrutiny, turned out to be a monumental fraud allegedly perfected through the most trusted super professional civil servants who padded President Buhari’s figures of N6.08 trillion, with a whooping N1.6 trillion!

With good intentions to deliver dividends of democracy to the teeming masses who voted him to power, the President’s Budget of Hope which received standing ovation and was loudly applauded by the legislators was later discovered to be stuffed with terrible discrepancies and anomalies which could neither be explained nor defended by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) at the various Committee stages preparatory to passage. The sacred book of holy figures had been desecrated and fingered by malfeasants who took undue advantage of the unflinching TRUST bestowed upon them by Mr. President who believed in their expertise and ingenuity as experts in the field, art and mastery of the appropriation craft, taking into consideration that they were the old brigade that usually spent 35 uninterrupted years to illegally accumulate funds of the common wealth kept in their custody – barring unforeseen exposures as this!

On assumption of office President Buhari trusted the execution of the mandate of righteousness in governance erroneously in the hands of the Mafia Civil Servants since he had pledged to become a civilized civilian in the Civilian Presidential Villa without the slightest inkling that they were rattle snakes on the prowl! Budget 2016 was to wear the new garb of the Zero –Based budgeting formula which involved justifying needs with costs as against the annual incremental approach that transfers expenses from previous budgets with added upward review and the President is now embarrassingly aware that the supposed experts were actually enemies of his Change Administration who were used to the old order of budget preparation through the usual envelope and incremental system of past administrations which was very fraught with deep and monumental corruption!

Presidency sources disclosed that the transparent Zero-based budgeting system had been in the front burner since the advent of the new government when it merged the Budget Office and National Planning to form the new Ministry of Budget and National Planning which the bureaucrats and former public officials vehemently resisted because the innovation would completely block all avenue of official corruption and exploiting of the system to which they were accustomed!

Apart from subtle hostility to the new Ministry, those civil servants were also alleged to have created various challenges during the 2016 Budget preparation stages through deliberate administrative and bureaucratic bottlenecks, and by presenting the out-dated 2013 Price Reference List instead of a quarterly-updated list through the Bureau of Public Procurement and as a result lots of discrepancies of inclusions, duplication of figures, errors and ambiguities in the budget that has over 6.000 items, it became impossible for the legislators to continue their oversight functions which was suspended on Tuesday, 9 th February, 2016 ! According to Premium Times, a senior official from the Presidency had blamed “budget Mafia” for the discrepancies in the document in reference to civil servants responsible for preparing the budget and that government would resolve the issues without much publicity to avoid playing into the hands of its critics!

In the meantime, the Presidency has ordered the immediate investigation of all the allegations and issues, particularly on the padding, raised by the National Assembly (NASS) on various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s), of government to critically look into the budget item-by-item, incident-by-incident, with particular attention to the reactions from NASS, ministries, media, civil society groups or indeed anybody regarding the padding of the 2016 Budget estimates, according to an anonymous government top functionary quoted by Premium Times at the weekend! All corrections would be made to ensure that the budget was passed as soon as possible as government is working cautiously on the corrections with the intention of sorting and correcting any error/malfeasance whatsoever spotted in the 2016 Appropriation Bill straight away!

Government Budget is an economic blue print, plan or financial statement of estimates of expected income and expenditure; an appraisal and aggregate of the estimates of MDA’s in the following year usually presented to the National Assembly for oversight of checks and balances as being done now to ensure that the welfare of the entire population is captured to ensure good and transparent governance. In the past, Nigeria’s Budgets had always tilted to support concurrent issues of payment of salaries and all manners of domestic indulgencies of the elites’ weakness for imported goods rather than capture capital projects in areas of education, health, housing, industry and agriculture that would benefits majority of the masses mostly. The 2016 Budget was the first in 16 years of Nigeria’s fresh attempt at a democratic experience which placed priority on the emancipation of the downtrodden from several years of neo-colonialism and yet the enemies within succeeded to create a set-back which we believe would be quickly rectified to guide the government for positive implementation while the culprits must be fished out and shown the exit door to prosecution and punishment of adequate periods of imprisonments if found guilty!

While Nigerians wait for the outcome of the Presidential Investigation Panel to submit its findings the Minister of Budget and National Planning has appealed to the legislators to respect the true wishes of the President as it borders on the 30 per cent allocation to capital projects in the 2016 Budget and avoid the mistakes of the past where only a meager 10 per cent was usually allocated since the government was determined to overcome subsisting economic challenges with that modest percentage of the Budget! He also asserted that it was possible to expand the nation’s revenue base outside of Crude Oil dependency through achievable targets from all revenue-generating agencies and also with more efforts of incursions into tax coverage areas since government had successfully blocked corruption loopholes and revenue leakages through the successful establishment of the Treasury Single Account (TSA)!

We have no problems with taxation by the present administration provided it had adequate machinery on ground to ensure that no taxable adult was exempted, that the albatross of multiple taxation of all wage-earners was resolved, and that the taxation exercise was executed with a human face!

The worst tax evaders are the rich and affluent in the society – the business magnates, local and foreign oil merchants and entrepreneurs, captain of industries and the construction sector workers of the economy because one of the most important reasons for taxation is to raise and increase revenue for government but the principles of equality and fairness must be engaged. It is common knowledge that the rich has greater ability to pay taxes more than the poor therefore, the searchlight must be focused more on rich tax-evaders. It is very pertinent for government to realize the necessity to employ the method of informal or indirect taxation at this period of global economic recession so that the poor masses would not bear the crunch more that their rich counterparts. Presently, there is virtually no one with purchasing power in Nigeria who is not paying taxes through the VAT system which percentage was recently increased by over 100 per cent to conform with international standards and best practices!

Indirect taxation through increased duties on prohibitive goods like foreign beverages, foods, cigarettes and cereals – especially, imported smuggled rice, would raise more taxes and reduce the burden from the majority population who are mostly unemployed and contribute very significant proportion of taxes into government coffers round the clock! Thank God that President Buhari has returned home to wade into the imbroglio over multiple taxation of the Talakawas (poorest of the poor), and is on seat also to monitor the investigations that would unravel the brains behind the monumental fraud which was perpetrated under his very nose by those whom he inadvertently trusted so that the Sheep could be separated from the Goats in his Change Government! The detection of this fraud was a divine intervention to put the nation on the right track of genuine economic emancipation once and for all!

The time for judgment upon all those who are opposed to the Government of Righteousness divinely established to cater for the needs of the masses which will completely wipe off the rot and decay of corruption that had been the hallmark of Nigeria for decades has manifest and the die is cast for all defaulters! The word of God talks of the imminent judgment of the nations at the end of the age in which they shall be separated one from another as a Shepherd divides his sheep from the goats – the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left [Matthew. 25:31-46].

The import of this Scripture is that those on the right hand constituted the obedient group who would inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundations of the world while those on the left represented the wicked and disobedient who would be condemned and cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels for everlasting punishment!

Definitely the enemies of Nigeria and their collaborators at home and abroad deserve this punishment and more!

“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and him that is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I come quickly, says the Lord and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be whether it be good or it be bad!

He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is telling the Church! Amen. Come quickly Lord!

Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next edition of Zion B-BC Newsletter as you share this with friends and remain blessed in the Lord. [For weekly access, to this newsletter, log on to: facebook.com/zionfaithbible.believingchurch or http://www.zfbbc1.blogspot.com, https://www.google.com/+zionfaithbiblebelievingchurch.

If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, don’t miss this great opportunity as you pray this prayer: Lord Jesus; I confess that I am a sinner who needs to be saved through the grace of the New Testament of your Blood, shed on the Cross at Calvary; I renounce every sin in my life and accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Please forgive me and write my name in the Book of Life. Amen. If you prayed this prayer, you have been admitted into the family of sons and daughters of God, who are born-again. Congratulations.

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066 g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.