Melaye: Once I was blind, but now I can see

Dino Melaye, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator representing Kogi west, has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2016 budget as holy.

Speaking on Thursday while making his contribution to debate on the 2016 appropriation bill on the floor of the senate, Melaye said he was once blind, but he could now see.

Maintaining that the budget would serve the interest of Nigerians, he called on upper legislative chamber to pass it.

“I thank President Muhammadu Buhari for giving us, for the first time in 17 years, a holy budget,” he said.

“And instead of repatriating our national patrimony for the purchase of stoves, he has given something to the youth. Let me say, that borrowing this time will be beneficial to the ‘talakawas’,the ‘mekunus’ and the palm-wine tappers in Umuleri.

“This administration is bringing back our long-lost reputation as a country. The time to be born again is now. Once I was blind, but now I can see.”

Making her own contribution, Abiodun Olujimi, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator from Ekiti state, described the budget as deficient.

“The expenditure and the deficits are the problems in this budget,” she said. “This budget is not a budget of change because there is a deficiency.”

On his part, Olusola Adeyeye, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator from Osun state and chief whip, called for a departure from oil revenue to an increase in tax revenues through effective taxing system.

He also decried the cost of governance, arguing that some government parastatals must go instead of funding them.