AN expert in budget matters and the Executive Director of Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Society Rights (CCIDESOR), Mr. Emeka Ononamadu, a non-governmental organisation has faulted the ongoing undercurrents in the Senate on the switch of the budget, asking both the Senate and President Muhammadu Buhari, to be open and transparent over the matter.

From the goings-on, he said since the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mrs. Christine Lagarde visited Nigeria, the issue of the whereabouts and the correct version of the 2016 appropriation bill erupted, urging that the Legislature and Executive should be transparent to Nigerians.

Speaking with The Guardian yesterday in Owerri, Ononamadu, who is also a former member of Civil Society Steering Committee of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, regretted that Nigerians were kept in alleged shrouded secrecy on what was going on in the 2016 appropriation bill submitted recently to the National Assembly (NASS).

Ononamadu, who is also the Imo State Co-ordinator of the Publish What You Pay, said: “Nigeria requires to run an open and transparent budget from the point of formulation to presentation to the National assembly and implementation stage. I am surprised that the first budget of this regime is ushered by rumour and controversy.