Slash in health, education budgets height of Buhari govt’s insensitivity —PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Wednesday rejected the Federal Government’s decision to slash the 2020 budgetary allocations for basic healthcare and the Universal Basic Education (UBE), describing the move as the height of insensitivity to Nigerians’ plight.

The federal government had slashed the budgetary allocations for healthcare from N44.4 billion to N25.5 billion and the UBE from N111.7 billion to N51.1 billion respectively.

The party in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately recall the budget and rework the figures to reflect a 100 percent increase in the initial figures as a step forward towards meeting the needs of the citizens in the affected sub-sectors.

The statement read: “In slashing the budget for the primary health need of the people to N25.5 billion (a 42 percent cut) and UBE budget to N51.1 billion (a 54 percent cut), in a country of over 200 million people, who are already economically overburdened, the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its administration have further exposed that they have never had the welfare of Nigerians at heart.

“The party says no government, which genuinely means well for its citizens, will vote a paltry N25.5 billion for basic health care for 200 million people in 774 local governments, particularly at this time our nation is facing huge health challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, while allocating a bigger sum of N27.7 billion for the renovation of the National Assembly complex, which is not even in a distressed state.

“While the PDP has nothing against any effort to improve on the working condition of our federal legislature, placing the renovation of the National Assembly complex above health care at this critical time is a scandalous misplacement of national priority by President Buhari and APC presiding officers.

“Moreover, our party has been made aware that this development does not reflect the views of the majority of federal lawmakers. A critical analysis of the allocations indicates that with the N25.5 billion voted for primary health care in a country of over 200 million citizens, President Buhari and the APC plan to spend only about N125 per Nigerian at the primary health care level, within the 2020 fiscal year.”