THE Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has criticized the current administration for not paying enough attention to economic management difficulties.
Obi in a post on X today, criticized the recent National Assembly approval of President Bola Tinubu’s proposal to securitize the outstanding N7.3 trillion ways and means debt balance.
While Ways and Means is a credit facility through which the Central Bank of Nigeria provides short-term financing to offset the government’s budget deficits, securitization is the practice of aggregating various types of financial instruments and selling them to investors as bonds.
“We must move beyond politics and political grandstanding to confront the underlying concerns of sustainable economic management. “I am concerned that the current administration is not giving adequate attention to issues of rational economic management,” he stated.
Obi described the securitization as “illegal”.
The LP’s presidential candidate stated that former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration obtained approval from the Senate for N22.7 trillion in ways and means of borrowing from the CBN, with only 26 days remaining in his eight-year term.
“In seven years, CBN lending to the Buhari government had climbed 2700% in flagrant violation of the CBN Act,” the former Anambra governor said.
“Indifferent to the illegality of the excessive ways and means borrowing, the national assembly still approved the new Tinubu administration’s request for an N7.3 trn securitization of the existing ways and means facility just before considering the 2024 budget proposals.
“No questions asked. No explanations were sought as to the precise purpose of these borrowings all within the seven-month tenure of this government.
“Ordinarily, minimum public accountability should require that the president and his administration offer more specific explanations about the purpose of these borrowings. But so far, all we have been told is that these borrowings are meant to fund ‘capital’ expenditure,” he said.
