Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar has criticized the plan by the Federal government to sell some public asset to fund the 2018 budget.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Atiku’s campaign organisation described the plan as an irresponsible decision as selling one’s “family house to take a trip overseas on holiday.”
The government had announced a couple of months ago that it intended to raise N289 billion from the sale of 10 public assets to fund the budget.
Reacting to this on Wednesday, , Atiku’s campaign organisation condemned, while referencing an earlier statement by President Buhari where he accused the PDP of failing to build public infrastructure in the 16 years it was in power.
The organisation, which claimed that most of the asset listed for sale were built during successive PDP-led administrations, wondered what asset the government was planning to sell if as the president claimed, the PDP did not build any infrastructure while in power.
“His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, supervised the successful policy of privatisation. Privatisation works because it is a long-term strategy to engender efficiency in the economic system and expand the frontiers of private sector activity. Its primary goal is NOT to raise money for short term stabilisation of what is clearly a fragile fiscal system. The government’s planned sale of assets will cause long term pains and only provide short term gains.”
According to the campaign organisation, rather than sell public asset, what the government needs to device alternative means of revenue rather than its almost complete reliance on the proceeds of oil and cutting of recurrent expenditures.
“We knew that such a day would come, which is why His Excellency Atiku Abubakar has on various occasions made it clear that what is needed at this time is fundamentally fiscal restructuring to eliminate our addiction to oil revenues and strengthen our internal revenue generating capacity and a restructuring of the budget in favour of capital spending, the statement explained.
“It makes no sense to sell public assets simply to fund a ‘business-as-usual’ budget that is essentially 70% recurrent. It is irresponsible to part with valuable assets simply to consume the proceeds (Like selling your family house to take a trip overseas on holiday).”
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