Presidency has berated the presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, over his views on the 2019 budget, saying that his views are “ high on rhetoric and low on real solution”
Atiku had last weekend, issued a statement in which he described President Buhari’s 2019 budget proposal as fundamentally flawed and failing to address current realities.
Presidency noted that the PDP Presidential candidate who identified what he described as “current realities”, in his budget criticism, however, “ offered no substantive and workable solution to the identified “realities”.
According to the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, “ Atiku describes the underlying assumptions of the budget as generous, wild and untenable but does not propose alternative assumptions that would have been more appropriate”
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Presidency while rejecting Atiku’s poison that the economy was still in recession, explained that when an economy experiences two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, it is said to be in recession and whenever it returns to positive GDP growth of whatever rate, it is said to have exited recession, adding that “ it is doubtful if he understands the simple meaning of recession.”
Presidency also noted that his repeated reference to the price of Brent Crude throughout his statement may be indicative of his lack of knowledge that Nigeria’s Bonny Light Crude trades at a premium of at least $2 per barrel over the price of Brent; just as his reference to Nigeria’s OPEC quota may also suggest that he does not know that Condensates do not count in measuring compliance with the quota.
Presidency also faulted the PDP Presidential candidate over his views on the provision of N305 billion for NNPC’s cost under-recovery on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), for not offering alternative measures to deal with the issue.
“He describes the 2019 budget as being very small, but does not offer any implementable options for improving domestic resource mobilization, which is the only sustainable means to achieving larger budgets. It does seem that he does not understand or is just feigning ignorance about the critical role of revenue in budget preparation.”
It is therefore obvious, in the eyes of the Presidency, that Atiku’s statement on the budget was a poor attempt at playing to the gallery. Without a doubt, the country faces significant fiscal challenges.
“The administration of President Buhari understands these challenges, as well as workable solutions thereto. The implementation of some of the solutions however needs to be paced and well-timed to avoid dislocating the growth trajectory of the economy.
Atiku’s criticism of the 2019 budget proposal can best be described as high on populist rhetoric but low on any real solutions to the identified challenges.”
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