The Senate Minority leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe during the deliberation of the N10.7Tn budget on Wednesday, said that the 2020 budget was unrealistic and based on taxation rather than consolidation.
He said, “Very many things were put and jumbled up such as the budget of fiscal consolidation, investing in critical infrastructure and so forth.”
Abaribe made few points saying that the debt servicing allocation at N2.4Tn was higher than the capital expenditure at N2Tn, while the projected growth that was captured in the budget was 1.9 per cent, less than the population growth of 2.6 per cent which puts Nigeria at a struggling position.
He also added that two assumptions are critical for this government as mentioned in the budget – the assumption on oil prices and that projecting increased oil production levels daily at an average of 2.1m BPD as against 1.8m achieved last year was unrealistic.
However, the minority leader said that the budget would not be sustainable and needed to change, the critical fundamentals of this budget speech must be looked at and adjustments made as due.
