The Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Budget of Renewed Hope,’ presented before the National Assembly, stating that the N27.5 trillion budget is intended to oppress impoverished Nigerians.
The party, through its spokesperson Debo Ologunagba, asserted that the budget proposed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration contains inflated figures and duplicated items, urging the National Assembly to thoroughly examine the proposed budget.
President Tinubu, during his inaugural budget presentation, emphasized that the proposed budget aims at achieving micro-economic stability, poverty reduction, and increased access to social security.
He outlined priority areas such as security, local job creation, economic stability, investment optimization, human capital development, poverty reduction, and social security.
Providing a breakdown of the budget, the President allocated recurrent non-debt expenditure at N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.73 trillion, debt service at N8.25 trillion, revenue at N18.32 trillion, new borrowings at N7.83 trillion, and a deficit at N9.18 trillion.
However, the PDP, in a prompt response to the budget proposal, criticized the estimates as a “significant disservice” that, if approved, would worsen the plight of Nigerians and deepen the nation’s economic downturn and despair.
“The PDP also describes the claim by President Tinubu that the budget is a Budget of Renewed Hope as conjured, unfounded and deceptive as the budget is completely devoid of concrete mechanisms to revive the economy, create jobs, address the comatose manufacturing and productive sectors, human capital development deficiencies and depleting life expectancy of Nigeria citizens,” the statement partly read.
“The 2024 budget is filled with heavily padded figures, duplicated items and several false statistics including claims of global increase in inflation rate as excuse for an impending excruciating increase in taxes and interest rate to the detriment of our productive sector.
“It is clear that the 2024 budget as proposed with its heavy provisions for luxury appetite of the Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders which is predicated and expected to be funded from multilateral and bilateral foreign loans and increased taxes on Nigerians, is designed to further mortgage our nation and strangulate the already impoverished Nigerians.
“The budget framework with respect to Recurrent Expenditure Vote of N9.9 trillion, Capital Expenditure Vote of N8.7 trillion and N8.25 trillion for debt services is unsustainable and unrealizable in view of the stated outstanding debt and proposed borrowing which is targeted mainly to finance consumption, luxury appetite and debt servicing.
“The lack of concrete and verifiable action plans to revive the manufacturing, energy, agricultural and education sectors which are the main drivers of any economy is a pointer that the Tinubu-led APC government is bereft of ideas and completely disconnected from the reality of life being faced by Nigerians.”
The opposition party argued that Tinubu’s adoption of a N750 per US Dollar exchange rate has negatively impacted the economy, weakened the productive sector, and eroded the purchasing power of Nigerians.
