The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the national assembly should not pass the proposed 2025 budget because it is “anti-people”.
In a statement, Debo Ologunagba, the spokesperson of the
opposition party, said the president’s budget address was like “campaign
rhetoric laced with unsubstantiated economic statistics”.
On Wednesday, President Bola Tinubu presented N49.7 trillion
as the 2025 proposed appropriation bill before the joint sitting of the senate
and house of representatives.
The proposed bill is titled “Budget of restoration: Securing peace and rebuilding prosperity”.
Tinubu said the government targets N34.82 trillion in
revenue to fund the budget, with a projected expenditure of N49.7 trillion,
including N15.81 trillion for debt servicing.
The president added that the bill projects that inflation
would decline from the current rate of 34.6 percent to 15 percent next year,
while the exchange rate is expected to improve from approximately N1,700 per US
dollar to N1,500, and a base crude oil production assumption of 2.06 million
barrels per day (mbpd).
However, the Ologunagba said the budget “made no meaningful
provisions” for “real drivers of the national economy”.
He added that Tinubu made a “voodoo economy claim” regarding
the bill projection to arrest inflation and the exchange rate “without any
indices for tangible investment in the productive sector.”
The PDP spokesperson said the national assembly should
“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”.
“The PDP states that the 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 standards for citizens,” the statement reads.
“President Tinubu dashed the hope of millions of suffering
Nigerians who expected him to use the 2025 budget to make strategic provisions
that will lead to the reduction in the cost of fuel, food items, electricity
tariffs, and other essential goods and services that have a direct bearing on
the well-being of the people.
“The PDP is dismayed that instead the budget speech was an
assault on the sensibility of Nigerians when Mr. President claimed that the
2024 budget recorded a bogus 85% performance without a breakdown of the
component between recurrent and capital expenditure.
“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% inflation, and 40%
unemployment rates in the last 18 months as validated by official figures.
“The PDP, therefore, calls on the National Assembly not to
pass the 2025 budget as presented but to 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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