PDP Condemns Slash in Budgets for Health, Education

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday denounced the  slashing of the 2020 budget  allocations for basic and health care, describing it as the height of insensitivity to the plights of Nigerians.

The National Assembly in the revised 2020 Appropriation Bill  slashed the budget for healthcare from N44.4 billion to N25.5billion, and the Universal Basic Education (UBE) budget from N111.7 billion to N51.1 billion,

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

PDP wondered why the slash in the health care section, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic era.

It insisted that 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 overburden, the APC and its administration have further exposed themselves to the fact that they never have the welfare of Nigerians at heart.

The party said no government, which genuinely means well for its citizens, would vote a paltry N25.5 billion for basic health care for 200 million people in 774 local government areas, particularly a time the country 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 the 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, the party said: "Our party has been made aware that this development does not reflect the views of majority of the federal lawmakers.”

According to Ologbondiyan, "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."

In the same vein, PDP said with the N51.1 billion allocation for basic education in a country of estimated 43 million school-age children, the APC-led federal government is deeming it proper to spend only N1, 186 per child at the UBE level in 2020 fiscal year.

It wondered if the APC government targets to achieve more out-of-school children as well as more health need deficit in the country.

PDP said: "Our party, therefore, rejects this collusion by the APC-led federal executive and their presiding officers in the National Assembly to downgrade the health need of our people as well as the education necessity of our children.”

"It is even more distressing that the APC administration would still cut the primary healthcare budget in spite of the recent confession by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, that our health sector had gone moribund despite claims of interventions by the current administration."