Atiku Abubakar said President Tinubu’s plan to spend 5.4 trillion naira for the year 2024 on fuel subsidy showed he is a bundle of contradictions.
The statement followed a report of action plan to support the economy submitted to President Tinubu, by Wale Edun, Finance Minister and Coordinator of the Economy on Tuesday, June 4.
The Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan was submitted to Tinubu and an Executive Order that also accompanied the plan.
A part of the plan read, “At current rates, expenditure on fuel subsidy is projected to reach N5.4trillion by the end of 2024. This compares unfavourably with N3.6 trillion in 2023 and N2.0 trillion in 2022.” This shows that the current administration pays more for fuel subsidies than previous administration of Muhammadu Buhari.
Atiku’s Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, on Wednesday, June 5, while reacting to the draft of the plan accused the President of deceiving Nigerians.
Tinubu during his inauguration on May 29, 2023 announced an end of premium motor spirit subsidy, popularly called fuel subsidy.
The former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku, through his aide, said was regrettable that a government that announced end of subsidy would map out N5.4 trillion to pay, against what previous administrations paid.
‘Tinubu is a bundle of contradictions! Tinubu on May 29, 2023: Subsidy is gone for good, savings to be deployed on infrastructure. Tinubu today: Subsidies may gulp N5.4 trillion in 2024,” Ibe said.
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Wale Edun had in an interview on President Tinubu’s one-year administration, said economy has been put on track for growth.
“I would say Mr President has achieved relative stability in his first year in office. He has put the economy on a track of growth and has put together a package of intervention measures, especially in agriculture, which needs to be re-doubled, re-emphasized, and further extended in order to have the full effect.”
He, however, admitted that actions of Tinubu in his first one year was responsible for economic hardship Nigerians suffer. He said the policies were neccessary for the growth of Nigeria.
“On one hand, the macro-economic measures which everybody knows to save the economy and bring it back from financial bankruptcy, save the FX market from chaos and basically a market that was stalled and was illiquid leaving businesses frustrated.
“Clearly, the initial measures taken by Mr President to stabilize the economy has led to an inflationary spike in terms of cost of fuel and secondly in terms of the exchange rate and also in terms of interest rates, the CBN defined its core mandate was to fight inflation and the number one tool to fight that was push up interest rates.
“In a nutshell, those were actions that were necessary but led to the spike in the cost of living for the ordinary Nigerian as well as increased cost for businesses,” Edun said.
He said the tough decisions have continued to bear fruit of economic growth for the country. “However, those measures are beginning to bear fruit. At a time when interest rates are high, which normally means that when businesses find it hard to borrow and invest, the economy is growing.
“People are finding a source of funds and equity, including the government putting in its own share of private-public sector funding for infrastructure in particular and that is helping to create jobs and grow the economy presently. But on the other hand, inflation is high at 33.69 percent, food inflation at over 40 percent is worrisome but the fact is that inflation is coming down on a month-on-month basis (2 percent).
“So, it is slow and it is expected to reduce. As we continue the dry season harvest and go into the wet season harvest, a lot of emphasis is placed on getting more agricultural input to get prices down and that will be a big factor in bringing down inflation.
“Recall that there have been intervention programmes to ameliorate the pains of Nigerians, which include direct payments of N75,000 to 15 million households, which is expected to yield dividends in terms of pushing help to Nigerians,” he added.
