Tinubu’s budget for 2024 lacks transparency and is misleading  — PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called President Bola Tinubu’s N27.5 trillion budget for the 2024 fiscal year, which was presented to the National Assembly, a great disservice.

The major opposition party claimed in a statement that if the appropriations bill is allowed to pass, it will further suffocate Nigerians and send the country into more economic distress and hopelessness, following the president’s presentation of the bill on Wednesday.

In addition, the statement, which was signed by the party’s national spokesman Debo Ologunagba, called President Tinubu’s assertion that the budget is a Budget of Renewed Hope “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 party said, “The 2024 budget is full of highly manipulated numbers, repeated items, and a number of bogus facts, including assertions of a worldwide rise in inflation as a pretext for an upcoming agonising rise in interest rates and taxes that will harm our productive sector.

“It is obvious that the proposed 2024 budget, with its substantial provisions for the leaders of the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC), is intended to further mortgage our country and strangle the already impoverished Nigerian people. This budget is based on and expected to be funded by multilateral and bilateral foreign loans as well as increased taxes on Nigerians.

With regard to the N9.9 trillion recurring expenditure vote, the N8.7 trillion capital expenditure vote, and the N8.25 trillion debt servicing vote, the budget framework is unworkable and unrealisable given the declared amount of outstanding debt and the proposed borrowing, which is primarily intended to fund debt servicing, luxury spending, and consumption.

The absence of specific, verifiable action plans to revitalise the manufacturing, energy, agricultural, and education sectors—which are the backbones of any economy—indicates that the Tinubu-led APC government lacks vision and is utterly cut off from Nigerians’ day-to-day realities.

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The President’s announcement in the budget speech that his government has “adopted a Naira to US Dollar exchange rate of N750 per US Dollar for 2024” is extremely concerning.

“This is an open acknowledgment of the APC administration’s inability, incapacity, and lack of direction to build and manage the economy in a way that strengthens the value of the currency, productivity, and competitiveness in the international market.

“It has further demonstrated that the President’s and his government’s repeated claims of a monetary policy to support the Naira have been a sly tactic, consistent with the APC’s actions throughout the previous eight and a half years.

“President Tinubu has further destroyed our economy, weakened our productive sector, destroyed Nigerians’ purchasing power, and destroyed the ability of the youth to be creative by adopting a defeatist N750 per US dollar exchange rate. He also realised that small and medium-sized enterprises and startups would find it nearly impossible to access capital under such a stifling budget.

“Every competent leadership works hard to protect and uphold the value of the national currency. Regretfully, our country’s currency and pride have been given over to the whims and avarices of the so-called “market forces” by the Tinubu-led administration.

The PDP maintained that the economy would see a swift turnaround and the Naira would strengthen to its value of less than N200 per US dollar, which it bequeathed to the APC in 2015. The PDP insisted that this would happen with an open, truthful, and creative management of the nation’s resources and economic potential—as opposed to an excessive pursuit of luxury consumption by a few individuals in leadership positions, “as being witnessed under the APC.”

“It is pathetic that the President whose main duty is to provide for the security and welfare of Nigerians as provided for in Section 14 (2) (b) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) could present a budget that is not geared towards the attainment of that Constitutional duty imposed on him,” the party said, noting that President Tinubu’s 2024 budget represents hopelessness for Nigerians.

In order to fulfil its constitutional obligations under Sections 80, 81, and 82 of the 1999 Constitution, the PDP called on the National Assembly to reject the 2024 budget as it was presented and to use its legislative authority to dismantle the budget and add provisions that are essential to the expansion of the economy and the welfare of Nigerians.