TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says President Muhammadu Buhari’s “approval of the release of N804 billion” as bailout to states and local governments has clearly proven that Goodluck Jonathan did not hand over a virtually empty treasury.

While speaking with state house correspondents on June 22, Buhari had lamented the country’s “virtually empty treasury”, urging the media to report the true situation of things so that Nigerians will not vent their spleen on his administration.

The president’s bailout plan includes sharing of the $2.1 billion dividend paid to the Federation Account by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG); a Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from  N250 billion  to N300 billion; and a debt relief programme designed by the Debt Management Office which will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660 billion, and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.

Earlier, Ahmed Idris, account-general of the federation, announced that the  federal government and the 36 state governors had agreed to share $1.7 billion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

But PDP has now expressed belief the bailout plans announced by the federal government could never have been possible if the treasury was indeed virtually empty.

It added that although the plan will go a long way in alleviating the sufferings of workers in various states of the federation, “a significant amount of the bailout came from savings accumulated in the Excess Crude Account handed over to the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC)’s administration by the past PDP-led administration”.

“This development is in clear contradiction to the earlier impression given by President Buhari to Nigerians and the international community that they should not expect much from his administration in its first 100 days because according him, upon assumption of office, he met a virtually empty treasury,” Olisa Metuh, PDP’s national publicity secretary, said in a statement.

“We want to believe that given the president’s release of such huge amount, he may have realised that he was earlier misdirected on the
actual financial state of the nation at the time he took over. In this regard, we expect the president, as a respected statesman, to do the needful to correct that erroneous impression.

“Furthermore, we expect President Buhari’s APC administration, as direct beneficiary of this savings initiated by past PDP administrations, to appreciate the strategic importance of always saving for a rainy and as such guarantee prudent and transparent management of the nation’s resources now under its care.”

The party charged the APC, as a party in government, to “put its house in order, desist from injecting confusion and distracting the president from settling down to form a government and face the enormous challenges of governance, especially the implementation of his long list of campaign promises to Nigerians”.

It added that Nigerians are no longer interested in insults, tirades and propaganda, but in actions and policies that will move the nation forward.