2023 Budget Can’t is Unrealistic — CUPP
The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), reacting to the 2023 budget proposal presented by President Muhammadu Buhari, describing it as one with unrealistic projections.
The CUPP, said that there’s absolutely nothing in the budget that excites and instigates growth of the economy or even developmental activities, added that it is high in sound, lacking in substance and as empty as the government that presented it.
CUPP, in a statement by its Spokesperson, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, said 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.
The CUPP said 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.
“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,” the opposition said.
(Independence)
