FROM CUPP
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7TH OCTOBER 2022
…OPPOSITION COALITION CUPP SAYS THE 2023 BUDGET IS AN END TO EIGHT YEARS OF FINANCIAL RECKLESSNESS, BORROWING, VISIONLESS, WASTEFUL, AND NON-IMPLEMENTABLE BUDGETING PROCESS.
BUHARI’S BUDGET IS A CONSUMPTION AND BORROWING DOCUMENT THAT LACKS THE SUBSTANCE THAT CAN LIFT NIGERIA OUT OF POVERTY, BUT, AN ASSURED DOCUMENT TO FINAL ECONOMIC BANKRUPTCY.
The Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, has described the 2023 budget proposal by President Muhammadu Buhari as one with unrealistic projections, high in sound, lacking in substance and as empty as the government that presented it.
In a statement on behalf of the Coalition issued by the Spokesperson of the Coalition, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, it says the 2023 budget would be a budget to draw the curtain on eight years of malfeasance, budget padding, unbridled borrowing, unprecedented corruption, and wasteful expenditure. “There is absolutely nothing in the budget that excites and instigates growth of the economy or even developmental activities and nothing to encourage foreign direct investment. It is clear President Buhari presented this budget just because he has to do so and is just waiting for time to leave office, having destroyed the country, its economy, unity, peaceful coexistence, and assured future.”
“How can a government whose first full budget in 2016 was just N6.06 Trillion justify and celebrate over N20 trillion budget in 2023, noting that the indices were still the same? It’s all about padding, borrowing, a shortfall in revenue generation, and visionless implementation, which has not meant well for Nigerians and for which the government really has nothing to show,” the statement said.
Ikenga Ugochinyere continued that a budget with far less than 30% vote for capital expenditure is not a budget meant to serve the people and accused the APC of presenting such a budget to enable it to loot the money since most of the money is tied to consumables and recurrent expenditure, which are very easy to loot.
It is unimaginable that a President who was elected on the mantra of fighting corruption has now successfully legitimized borrowing to fund the unquenchable thirst of his party to loot the National treasury. APC now borrows to fund looting; otherwise, there is no justification for the party, in the current debt-to-revenue ratio in which Nigeria operates, to propose another N11 Trillion Naira. Already Nigeria has the worst debt-to-revenue ratio in the world, yet our President wants to borrow an extra N11 Trillion for the APC to loot and use in the prosecution of the 2023 election.
Ugochinyere concluded by saying that the insensitivity of the APC to the plight of the common man is now so obvious that Nigerians have now come to the irreversible conclusion that APC is a plague and will be voted out of power so that we can rebuild our country otherwise the entire country could go bankrupt and descend into a situation of chaos and anarchy.
CUPP
MEDIA SECRETARIAT
ABUJA
