The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has slammed President Tinubu’s proposed N27.5 trillion budget for 2024 as “deceptive, strangling, and hopeless.”
The party accused the budget of lacking concrete mechanisms to revive the economy, create jobs, and address the country’s economic woes.
In a statement by Party spokesperson Debo Ologunagba, the PDP said the budget was “predicated and expected to be funded from multilateral and bilateral foreign loans and increased taxes on Nigerians” and would “further mortgage our nation and strangulate the already impoverished Nigerians.”
The PDP also criticised the budget’s lack of provisions for reviving the manufacturing, energy, agricultural, and education sectors.
“The lack of concrete and verifiable action plans to revive these key sectors 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,” Ologunagba said.
The party also took issue with the government’s adoption of a N750 per US dollar exchange rate, calling it a “defeatist” policy that would “weaken our productive sector, wreck the purchasing power of Nigerians and the capacity of the youths to be creative.”
It, therefore, called on the National Assembly to reject the budget and make provisions that would “promote economic growth and the welfare of Nigerians.”
“This 2024 budget as presented by President Tinubu therefore represents hopelessness for Nigerians,” Ologunagba said. “It is pathetic that the President, whose main duty is to provide for the security and welfare of Nigerians could present a budget that is not geared towards the attainment of that Constitutional duty imposed on him.”
Recall that President Tinubu earlier today presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly, outlining his administration’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.
Themed “Budget of Renewed Hope,” the president said the proposed budget focuses on national security, job creation, economic stability, human capital development, poverty reduction, and social security.
