From: Uche Nnorom, Makurdi
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Benue State chapter has described the 2024 budget presented to the state Assembly by the state Governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia as ‘unrealistic’.
The party in a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary Chiet Bemgba Iortyom in Makurdi on Wednesday, said the budget estimate is based on questionable assumptions.
Recalled that Goveenor Alia last Friday presented the 2024 budget estimate of N225. 7 billion to the state assembly.
PDP observed that the 2024 budget does not tally with the approved national projections by the federal government of Nigeria within the same period envisaged.
Iortyom noted that the budget estimate was a revision of what the immediate past administration of Governor Samuel Ortom handed over and regretted that with the humongous allocation coming from federal government, the 2024 budget should reflect such.
The party also faulted the governor’s projection of the budget which puts oil prices at $65 per barrel described it at variance with federal government projection.
Iortyom said, “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, and this naturally inflicts a credibility problem on a budget premised on such faulty ground.”
