The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has picked a hole in the N47.9 trillion budget estimates presented by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the National Assembly on Wednesday.
PDP in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, described the 2025 budget as anti-people and expressed the fears that it might exacerbate insecurity in the country and throw the people into poverty and hopelessness.
According to the party, “the budget as presented further confirms the insensitivity of the Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration towards the plight of Nigerians as it made no meaningful provisions and investments for critical productive sectors of agriculture and food production, electricity, petroleum and gas, small and medium scale enterprises, which are the real drivers of the national economy.”
PDP noted that the president in his speech, failed to disclose the capital and recurrent profiles of the 2025 budget.
The party stated that President Tinubu dashed the hope of millions of Nigerians who expected him to use the 2025 budget to make strategic provisions that would lead to the reduction in the cost of fuel, food items, electricity tariff and other essential goods and services that have direct bearing on the wellbeing of the people.
“The 2025 budget as proposed will shrink our national business environment, further cripple the productive sector, discourage domestic and foreign investors, lead to further depreciation of the Naira, worsen unemployment and inflation rate and push million more Nigerians into abject poverty and invariably heighten insecurity.
“Further distressing is President Tinubu’s claim that the economy improved under his watch even in the face of acute poverty, excruciating hardship, comatose infrastructure, collapsed productive sectors, deteriorating value of the naira, alarming 34.6 per cent inflation and 40 per cent unemployment rates in the last 18 months as validated by official figures.
“Equally ludicrous is Mr President’s voodoo economy claims that the 2025 budget will reduce the current inflation rate from 34.6 per cent to 15 per cent and improve the value of the naira from approximately N1,700 to the dollar to N1,500 without any indices for tangible investment in the productive sector and in the face of a staggering N134.3 trillion ($91.3 billion) debt accumulated under the APC watch,” the party noted.
PDP described the budget speech as an assault on the sensibility of Nigerians, noting that Tinubu claimed that the 2024 budget recorded a 85 per cent performance without a breakdown of the component between recurrent and capital expenditure.
“Tinubu’s budget address sounded more like a campaign rhetoric laced with unsubstantiated economic statistics, false promises and conjured performance claims without clear-cut operable steps and mechanisms to address insecurity, resuscitate the economy, revamp ailing industries, shore up food production, increase the value of the naira, reduce the overall cost of living, create jobs for our youths and guarantee better living standard for citizens.
“This has heightened public apprehension on the issue of full disclosure and transparency in government spending under the current administration.
“Given the crippled national productive sector, it is clear that with the N47.9 trillion expenditure including N15.8 trillion provision for debt services, the projected N34.8 trillion revenue with N13 trillion deficit will be financed by excruciating taxes and levies on already impoverished citizens and companies operating in the country,” PDP stated.
The party therefore called on the National Assembly not to pass the 2025 budget as presented but activate its legislative powers as guaranteed under Sections 80, 81 and 82 of the 1999 Constitution to rejig the budget and make provisions that are critical and pivotal to the growth of the economy and the welfare of Nigerians.
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