The Federal Government has tackled presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar over the economic blueprint he unfolded at an event in Lagos last week.
It dismissed the economic blueprint as “a crude attempt at copying all that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has implemented.”
It said this is especially in the areas of job creation, infrastructure financing, relationship with the private sector, rejuvenation of the power sector, poverty reduction, debt management and the overall management of the economy.
Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed, who spoke at a media briefing in Abuja, said it is more shocking that an opposition that has condemned all Buhari administration has done would turn around to weave its so-called Economic Blueprint around the same things being done by the same administration.
On infrastructure, Mohammed quoted the former Vice President as saying ”rebuilding infrastructure and reducing infrastructure deficit will enhance the carrying capacity of the economy and unleash growth and wealth creation.”
The Minister noted that no one understands this better than Buhari’s administration.
He added that “even our worst critics will agree that our record on infrastructure development is next to none in the history of this country.”
To buttress his point, Mohammed said: “Across the country, we have constructed 8,352.94 kilometres of roads, rehabilitated 7,936.05 kilometres of roads, constructed 299 bridges, maintained 312 bridges and created 302,039 jobs in the process.
“We have also delivered houses in 34 states of the Federation under the first phase of the National Housing Project. We were able to achieve these through a combination of budget increase and innovative infrastructure financing methods. Whereas we met a budget of N18.132 billion for the roads component of the Federal Ministry of Works when we assumed office in 2015, the budget for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing increased exponentially to N260.082 billion in 2016; N274.252 billion in 2017, N356.773 billion in 2018, N223.255 billion in 2019, N227.963 billion in 2020 and N241.864 billion in 2021. Therefore, for anyone using this as a campaign stunt, without acknowledging what we have done so far, is cheap and disingenuous,” he added.
The minister said that Atiku also promised to ‘break the jinx’ in infrastructure financing.
He asked rhetorically “Really? We state, unequivocally, that the worst jinx in infrastructure financing was the PDP administration from 1999 to 2015.” Continue Reading
