Billy Graham Abel, Yola
Senator representing Southern Adamawa, Binos Dauda Yeroe, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2020 budget, saying it is tantamount to mortgaging the future of Nigeria’s younger generation.
He faulted the budget as a budget of consumption without heavy investment on infrastructure. According to him, it lacked the ability to address infrastructural, economic and social challenges.
“As we all know, oil revenues constitutes a larger chunks of our national earnings and the basis at which oil revenue estimates were made, I am not happy with.
“They assumed that oil will be at $57 per barrel throughout 2020; I don’t think that is a realistic estimate because if you look at the trend of oil and gas in the world market, even when it rose to $70 per barrel as at last year, it has been falling and as at the time they submitted the budget, it was at $59 per barrel, so a margin of two dollars, is not wise.
“I also have problem with the volume of oil they estimated would be produced in 2020. In 2019, they estimated that they will produce 2.3 million barrels per day throughout the year but in the words of Mr President himself, the production in 2019 up to June has fallen way short of that, averaging 1.89 bp,”so if that is the case, why now go on to assume that you will produce 2.18 million barrels per day.