Mixed reactions trail Buhari’s 2023 budget presentation
By Haruna Salami
Mixed reactions have trailed N20.51 trillion 2023 budget presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly on Friday in Abuja.
Senator Betty Apiafi (Rivers West) said the budget does not have anything for capital component.
“Remember the N6.72 trillion for subsidy is excluding the salaries or the losses from the three refineries that we have borrowed money to repair that is still hanging; they were giving us December 2023 to get the refineries working. Now they are moving it to 2024; I mean there is no budget.
“The government should go and stop oil theft. They owe it to Nigerians to stop oil theft. You can’t be sitting down and say we are running government and people are stealing 80% of your revenue. What is that? We have insecurity and oil theft. So, we have no security, we have no economy”.
According to her, oil theft was about 200 barrels per day (bpd) and oil subsidy was about N400 billion. Somewhere along the line there was an amendment of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and fuel subsidy moved to N4 trillion. Today we are talking of N6.72 trillion. Revenue is dropping because about 80% of our revenue is stolen.
“From the records I saw in the MTEF presented to us, we are missing 1 million bpd. So, there is no budget.
“They gave us two scenarios when they gave us MTEF presented to us in the Senate yesterday. The two scenarios are if we provide 100% for subsidy, which is N6.72 trillion; there won’t be capital projects. If we do subsidy for 6 months, which is N3.36 trillion. Then we will have money for capital projects.
“Nobody does budgeting like that. Nigerians voted us to represent them, to protect the nation and make it prosper. So, what are we doing allowing our revenue to be stolen? We don’t have security, we don’t have economy and we don’t have a budget”, she said.
However, Senator Barau Jibrin (Kano North) said the president has just presented the budget to them and they have to go through it before he can make comments on it.
But he was quick to say that he has never seen a government that has made huge investment infrastructure development like the Buhari administration.
“Let me tell you one fact, I have never seen any government …, I have been a participant in the budgetary process since 1999 when we started our new journey in terms of democracy we’re enjoying as a nation. I was once Chairman House Committee on Appropriation and even when I left office I was following what was happening. There is no government in the history of this country that has invested so much in infrastructure. The government has done very well. It has performed Ina way we should commend it’, Barau concluded.
