The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, on Tuesday faulted sections of the 2021 budget as presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, many of his colleagues have seriously opposed his opinion as regards the budget.
Abaribe who faulted the Budget proposal during the Senate plenary said, “The era of oil is fading out, but the government retains an attitude of business-as-usual. This is not time for tokenistic ideas. Nigeria needs big ideas. The 2021 budget proposal failed to deliver on that point.”
He stated this during the debate on the N13.8 trillion 2021 budget at the floor of the Senate.
In opposition to his (Abaribe) statement, the Senate President Ahmad Lawal said that the budget proposal was an estimate and assumption, adding that budgetary projections had been done by every government since 1999 and would continue.
He then advised the Senate Minority Leader and others to rather focus on the areas they think would make the budget perform optimally.
Replying, Abaribe said, “So we are also going to look at the assumptions so that we know what we are assuming about, so we want to go ahead as the 2021 budget does not reflect an understanding of the fundamental challenges that beset this country.
“How would you budget 100 per cent when you know you are going to get 30 per cent. Every year we have a budget in which the capital budget and the debt are almost equal. What does that tell us, how do we move forward like that?”
Replying to this, Lawan said, “If I were the Minority Leader, I would have spoken in the same brilliant manner.” He however, noted that the 2014 budget had only 15 per cent for capital budget even when the then administration had plenty of money.
Abaribe’s argument was further faulted by the Deputy Chief Whip, Sabi Abdullahi. He said: “The budget is that of recovery and resilience, I know what recovery means as a veterinary doctor and I know what it means to bring an animal back to recovery. This government understands that the country is not well.”
