By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Benue State has taken a swipe at the content of the 2024 budget proposal of Governor Hyacinth Alia’s administration saying it is unrealistic and based on questionable assumptions.

The fiscal estimate christened “Budget of Infrastructure Development, Job Creation, And Poverty Alleviation,” with a total outlay of ₦225.73billion was last week presented to the State Assembly for consideration and passage.

The PDP in a statement issued in Makurdi by its State Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom berated the governor for using the budget presentation platform to castigate the government of former Governor Samuel Ortom saying it was unacceptable.

The party pointed out that the content of the fiscal estimate could be an indication that “either the governor or his team lack proper grasp of micro and macro economic fundamentals in budget and economic management.”

The PDP noted that the estimate did not “tally with the approved national projections by the federal government of Nigeria within the same period envisaged.”

The party stated that as “the budget proposals are set to undergo scrutiny under deliberations by the elected representatives of the people at the Benue State House of Assembly, it is pertinent to point out the stark contractions which make it a source of suspicion and worry rather than the hope it should stimulate in the state.

“Firstly, Governor Alia in revision of the 2023 budget handed to him by Chief Ortom blasted its 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, and by doing so PDP notes that he has naturally set for his 2024 budget a performance benchmark higher than that, and this is left to be judged, if at all he gets that far in office.

“We put it to the governor that as a result of the unprecedented revenue windfall from the removal of petroleum subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, capital inflow available to him is many times higher than in the previous administration, resulting in huge finances available to him, but which from all indications he is spending without accountability or transparency, neither is he paying heed to institutional safeguards ingrained in due process as provided under public financial management regulations.

“It is, therefore, the suspicion that his 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.

“Secondly, 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 assumptions.

“He also exhibited insincerity or ignorance, or both in his attempt to raise issues with what he termed as undervalued capital projects under the 2023 Ortom budget, whereas by the tenets of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), funding for capital projects is based on the number of years it will take to complete the project, since it is economically unwise to lump together the total project cost in a single year budget circle when the implementation is to take two or more years.

“Thirdly, PDP notes that Governor Alia has elevated Chief Ortom above him and become extremely reactionary in his attempts to rubbish even the very obvious gains made by his predecessor, which the people appreciate, even as they also understand the challenges it faced, which are not exclusive to it but are to be found with governments the world over.

“The people appreciate the fact that the Ortom administration constructed more kilometers of roads across Benue than any other administration, including the longest urban roads ever in the state capital, and those are roads which were built to high standards and at more cost effective rates on a per capita investment ratio than the short streets so far undertaken by Governor Alia.

“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 that has been fully completed, furnished and equipped with high-tech state of the art facilities, with aerial survey and mapping of the entire state with high-resolution orthophotos, conversion of analog map plans and files to digital systems.

“The administration also built magnificent palaces built for the Tor Tiv and Och’Idoma in Gboko and Otukpo respectively, the fully digitalized Benue Television, remodeling of Government lodges to 3 Star standards, procurement and distribution of tractors and other agricultural inputs, funding of infrastructural support and facilities at the airport in Makurdi for resumption of commercial flights in and out of the state.

“The enforcement of the Prohibition of Open Grazing and Ranches Establishment Law using the Livestock Guards and the Community Volunteer Guards as a security counter-measure against herdsmen terrorists who killed thousands and displaced millions into IDPs camps, with the federal government unwilling to protect the people of the state, was achieved together with the other milestones recorded by the Ortom administration without ever getting even close to half of N225billion to spend in a single year, and the little that was available could barely cover recurrent expenditure.

“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, and he should also redress the false assumptions replete in his budget proposals he tagged as “Budget of Infrastructure Development, Job Creation, And Poverty Alleviation”, but which sounds more like a mere campaign speech crafted to entertain an uncritical audience, with nothing serious intended to follow afterwards.”