Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has faulted the N7.3 trillion securitisation of existing ways and means facility just before considering the 2024 budget proposals, noting that the approval by the National Assembly amounted to frivolous spending on non-essential procurements.
He explained that On December 30, 2023, President requested the federal legislature to approve the securitisation of N7.3 trillion being the outstanding debt owed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the Federal Government.
In a speech titled, ‘Debt and Waste as Economic Policy’, which he delivered at The Convention Igniting The Voices of Africa in Accra, Ghana, last Sunday, the former governor of Anambra State submitted: “While this new debt of N7.3 trillion has been hurriedly approved without scrutiny by the National Assembly, the immediate public accountability question is: can the Federal Government, which holds the trust of the people, tell us what they used N7.3 trillion to do?
“We have always been told that all borrowings are for ‘capital’ projects, can we know the capital or productive projects this huge abourborrowing is being applied to?
“What is emerging is a disturbing pattern of huge borrowing and profligate spending on non-essential procurements, which are being termed ‘capital’ expenditure and are being funded with an accumulation of debts. For instance, a good number of these so-called ‘capital’ expenditure items as contained in the 2024 budget are more procurement and luxury projects.”
He continued: “This trend of lavish spending backed only by equally lavish borrowing is unsustainable and would wreck the economy in due course. It needs to be halted.”
“Unless this trend is halted, the nation runs the greater risk of running into more turbulent economic waters in the near future. This is to add my concerned voice to those of many other troubled Nigerians.
“This is the time when we need to go beyond politics and partisan grandstanding to address the fundamental issues of rational economic management. I am afraid that the current administration is not paying sufficient attention to issues of rational economic management. Instead, an unsustainable level of debt is being piled upon the economy, thereby further burdening our already distressed populace, who are bearing the burden of harsh economic policies not backed by compassionate cushioning policies.”
Going memory lane, Obi stated: “Barely 26 days to the end of its eight-year tenure, the ex-President Muhammadu Buhari administration got the Senate to approve a N22.7 trillion Ways and Means borrowing from the CBN. In seven years, CBN lending to the Buhari government had climbed 2700% in flagrant violation of the CBN Act.
“Indifferent to the illegality of the excessive ways and means borrowing, the National Assembly still approved the new Tinubu administration’s request for a N7.3 trillion securitisation of the existing ways and means facility just before considering the 2024 budget proposals. On the 30th of December 2023, the last working day of the year 2023, shockingly the President requested the National Assembly to approve the securitisation of N7.3 trillion being the outstanding debt owed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
