From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in Benue State, has described the maiden budgetary proposals presented by Governor Hyacinth Alia to the State House of Assembly outlining the fiscal plan for his administration in the 2024 financial year as deceptive and unrealistic.
The PDP stated this in a statement signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Chief Bemgba Iortyom, and made available to newsmen in Makurdi on Wednesday.
According to the party, the financial plan is based on questionable assumptions which do not tally with the approved national projections by the federal government of Nigeria within the same period envisaged.
“This has given rise to the suspicions that either the governor and his team lack proper grasp of micro and macro economic fundamentals in budget and economic management, or they have deliberately set out to hoodwink the people with a false hope by a rendition of inaccurate figures and statistics as well as basing of revenue projections on unrealisable sources.”
The party said it also found it appalling that Governor Alia could not resist the “overmastering temptation to turn an otherwise serious occasion into a stage to run down his immediate predecessor, Chief Samuel Ortom, whose administration the governor dedicated a sizeable portion of his address before the Assembly to paint in ugly colours.”
The budget tagged “Budget of Infrastructure Development, Job Creation, And Poverty Alleviation,” with a total outlay of ₦225.73 billion, has the following figures distributed across a number of sectors, with Education getting ₦33.86 billion representing 15%; Healthcare ₦33.88 billion (15.01%); Agriculture ₦28.26 billion (12.52%); Justice ₦12.93 billion (5.73%); Security ₦10.81 billion (4.79% of the budget); Infrastructural Development ₦80.73 billion (35.77%) of the budget) Social Welfare Initiatives ₦7.77 billion (3.44%) of the budget); Commerce ₦4.15 billion (1.84%) and ₦13.33 billion (5.90%) listed broadly as apportioned to other sectors.
The party pointed out that Governor Alia’s revision of the 2023 budget handed to him by Chief Ortom where he blasted it’s performance rate of 21.7 % in the first quarter of 2023 as poor, even as by extrapolation, it was on track to achieve 86.8 % performance over the course of the year 2023, said by doing so, Alia has naturally set for his 2024 budget a performance benchmark higher than that saying “this is left to be judged, if at all he gets that far in office.
PDP said Alia’s harsh revision of Ortom’s 2023 budget, which he deployed the use of percentages without stating specific figures, was insincere and aimed to retroactively cover the irregularities from the expenditures he has severally been accused of making, which documentary evidence from some quarters put at over N46 billion between June and September 2023 only out of an estimated N60 billion his administration is projected to receive from June to December, 2023, far more than what was received in the last half of 2022.”
The PDP also noted that, “the macroeconomic projections by Governor Alia in his 2024 budget proposals are at variance with those of the Federal Government such as oil prices at $65 per barrel and oil production at 1.6m barrels per day when the Federal Government projects $78 per barrel and 1.78m barrels a day; inflation at 20% and GDP growth at 3.2 percent when the Federal Government projects inflation at 21.4 percent and GDP at 3.76 percent,” saying this naturally inflicts a credibility problem on a budget premised on such faulty assumptions.
The party said the Benue people appreciate it that the Ortom administration constructed more quality and more kilometers of roads across Benue than any other administration, including the longest urban roads ever in the state capital, than the short streets so far undertaken by Governor Alia.
He named the roads constructed by Ortom including the Tse- Poor to Apir Road named Major Gideon Orkar Road (9.7 km @ N1.2 billion); the Yaikyór to Tse- Poor Road named Chief Sule Abenga Road (7.7 km @ N1.4 billion); the George Akume to NKST Yina Road named Sen. JKN Waku Road (2.0 km @ N560.4 million); the Kaanga – Akaya – Lucy Aluor – Otukpo Road named Nyesom Wike Road (2.10 km @ N809.088 million); the Low Cost Housing Estate – Bambam Road named Chief JC Obande Road (1.3 km @ N379.399 million).
Others include the Vandeikya town to the Palace of Tor Jechira Road in Vandeikya; the Armstrong Avenue in Otukpo; the Isaac Shaahu Road and the Aper Aku Road both in Gboko, are a few to mention in this statement which rank higher on utility delivery in terms of cost effectiveness than Gov. Alia’s 16 short streets totalling 15.3 kms to built at an estimated close to N10 billion.
He also recalled that the Ortom administration also delivered thousands of school infrastructure projects, dozens of health infrastructure and equipment projects, including a first-of-its-kind Infectious Diseases Centre and a first-of-its-kind UNICEF-approved cold room for the vaccine cold chain, dozens of rural electrification projects, over 1000 rural water projects, a first-of-its-kind N6.5billion Benue Geospatial Information System (BENGIS) land digitisation project among others.
The PDP challenges Governor Alia to shred the veil off his policy of concealment and declare publicly how much he has received from external and internal revenue sources since he assumed office, if he truly has nothing to hide.
The party also urged the Governor to redress the false assumptions replete in his budget proposals he tagged as “Budget of Infrastructure Development, Job Creation, And Poverty Alleviation”, as it sounds more like a mere campaign speech crafted to entertain an uncritical audience.