President Muhammadu Buhari
By Onwuasoanya FCC Jones
I will be surprised if the National Assembly go ahead to pass this sabotage called; 2016 Appropriation Bill, authored by a most thoughtless economic team assembled by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Passing this budget is tantamount to putting Nigeria in chains for the next 200 years, and destroying the future of the youts, most of whom brought this government into power through their votes, stones and lies. The National Assembly should get the executive to explain tom it, how it intends to operate a budget that contains the following details:
1. To borrow over two Trillion Naira to finance “infrastructural” development. Methinks, this is not about any infrastructural development, but an avenue to repay campaign expenses as the financiers of the 2015 APC campaign will be the ones to be awarded most of these contracts.
2. To spend about 134 Billion Naira in defense contracts and maybe procurement of defense equipment. Is the Boko Haram insurgency no longer ending by the end of this December? We must not forget that the APC took former President Goodluck Jonathan to the cleaners, the first time he voted about 1 Billion Naira to defense. A bigger Dasukigate may be in the offing.
3. How come our President and his APC government are insisting on paying five thousand Naira to our unemployed youths, instead of making efforts to provide an enabling environment for these youths to be productively engaged?
4. The budget is predicated on 197 Naira to one Dollar exchange rate. Dollar is almost 300 Naira in the parallel market, how does our President intend to perform the magic of closing up this gap in the next few days?
5. Fuel subsidy to go or to stay? The President should have come out clear on what fate awaits the subsidy on petroleum products come 2016. His directive to the PPPRA to the effect that PMS should sell at 87 Naira per liter “FOR NOW” leaves lots of questions begging for answers.
6. 500,000 youths to be employed as teachers in rural primary schools. This is the most laudable part of the budget proposal, and I hope the President keeps faith. However, this should not be a replication of the CGC teachers and 25,000 Youths Must Work program of my Governor, Owelle Okorocha.
7. 38$ oil benchmark is not realistic. The President should have known that oil will soon or later drop below 38$ per barrel, considering the free fall that black commodity is presently experiencing. The President’s decision to peg the budget at that benchmark may mean that we are eventually going to operate a budget of over 10 Trillion Naira by the end of 2016.
8. Six Trillion Naira budget while we are talking of cutting costs. The President swept to power on the promise of ensuring that cost of governance is drastically reduced. However, the first budget proposal presented by him is the highest ever in the history of Nigeria. Just last year, President Goodluck Jonathan was able to deliver on his transformational targets with about four Trillion Naira, and yet Nigerians had a better life. I am prayerful that 2016 will be a wonderful year for all of us, but the President had already told us to prepare for the worst.
9. With less than five hundred Billion Naira in capital expenditure, President Goodluck Jonathan was able to deliver the highest infrastructural projects in the history of Nigeria, according to Babatunde Fashola, who is the incumbent Minister(s) of power, housing and works. Considering that the President has promised us that there will be zero corruption in the implementation of this budget, we expect an unprecedented level of infrastructure across the country. If Jonathan, could with less than five Billion Naira, and lots of money stolen, achieve the much he achieved, we expect President Buhari to, in just 2016, build more infrastructure than all former Presidents put together. else, we will know that this money is budgeted for some people’s private pockets.
10. Loans, loans and more loans. This is the reason why I tagged this a budget of chains, what the President and his Party are doing or are planning to do is to mortgage the future of Nigerians, by borrowing away our future. Nigerians, especially the youths, must join to ask why. WHY?
MAY NIGERIA PREVAIL!
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