The Supervising Minister for Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has expressed optimism of overcoming the sundry economic and financial challenges confronting the Ministry and the country as a whole with the support of the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, and the Directors of the Ministry.
She made this known during her inaugural visit to the ministry on Monday in Abuja.
According to her, “The finance ministry has overtime been known to have very skilled personnel. From interacting with some of you, I know that there is a lot of skill set within the ministry, and that I am in good hands.
“I plan to work very closely with the whole of the directors, most especially with the Permanent Secretary.
“I want to declare that today the Permanent Secretary is my new next-of-kin. What that means is that I am going to work hand-in-gloves with him, and I expect everybody to do the same thing.
“There are some things I know about finance, but there is a lot that I don’t know; and the knowledge resides in you.”
“I have been told that you are preparing handing-over notes, or more correctly briefing notes; I will be engaging each of you on a one-on-one basis with the Permanent Secretary, so that I can have a complete view of what is in the ministry.
“These are very challenging times for our country. It means we are part of the economic team that has been charged with making sure there is economic stability in our country.
“We have very serious revenue challenges and it is up to us to shore up the revenues of this country.
“Mr President has a lot of confidence that we can do this very well together. We are working for Mr President, but at the end of the day we are working for the benefit of the citizens of our country.
“There are a lot of sacrifices that I know that you have done, and we are going to push ourselves to still do more so that at the end of the day we will say Alhamdulillah – Glory be to God!” she said.
It can be recalled that Mrs. Zainab Ahmed asides being the Minister of State Budget and National Planning, have held several critical positions in the past including being the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Managing Director of Kaduna Investment Company, member of the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG), to mention but a few.