{"id":58336,"date":"2024-12-22T17:23:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T17:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=58336"},"modified":"2024-12-22T17:23:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T17:23:43","slug":"2025-budget-cant-tackle-nigerias-economic-woes-says-atiku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2024\/12\/22\/2025-budget-cant-tackle-nigerias-economic-woes-says-atiku\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Budget Can\u2019t Tackle Nigeria\u2019s Economic Woes, Says Atiku"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Cynthia Abah<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Former Vice President and 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has criticized the 2025 budget proposal, stating it lacks the necessary reforms and fiscal discipline to address Nigeria\u2019s ongoing economic challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Atiku expressed doubts about the budget&#8217;s capacity to drive sustainable growth, highlighting its heavy reliance on borrowing and insufficient focus on long-term solutions.<\/p>\n<p>President Bola Tinubu recently presented a N47.9 trillion budget, with significant allocations to defense, infrastructure, education, and health. However, Atiku pointed to the N13 trillion deficit, about 4% of GDP, and criticized the government&#8217;s plan to borrow extensively to cover the gap.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 2025 budget lacks the reforms needed to address Nigeria\u2019s economic challenges.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Inefficiencies, inflated contracts, and excessive borrowing continue to hurt our economy,\u201d Atiku said.<\/p>\n<p>He also condemned the high debt servicing allocation of N15.8 trillion (33% of the budget), which nearly matches the N16 trillion set aside for capital investment.<\/p>\n<p>Atiku noted that the imbalance stifles essential investments in key sectors like health, education, and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Further, Atiku criticized recurrent spending of N14 trillion (30% of the budget), calling it inefficient and limiting resources for development.<\/p>\n<p>He also warned that the proposed VAT hike from 7.5% to 10% would worsen the economic hardship faced by Nigerians.<\/p>\n<p>Atiku urged the government to prioritize fiscal discipline, governance reforms, and long-term strategies to address Nigeria\u2019s economic woes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Cynthia Abah Former Vice President and 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has criticized the 2025 budget proposal, stating it lacks the necessary reforms and fiscal discipline to address Nigeria\u2019s ongoing economic challenges. Atiku expressed doubts about the budget&#8217;s capacity to drive sustainable growth, highlighting its heavy reliance on borrowing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":58337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-58336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58338,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58336\/revisions\/58338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}