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  • Politics
  • Updated: March 22, 2020

Hold APC Responsible For The Devaluation Of Naira - PDP

Hold APC Responsible For The Devaluation Of Naira - PDP

 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blamed the devaluation of the naira on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). 

In a press conference of Sunday, the opposition party said APC and President Muhammadu Buhari have finally wrecked the nation’s economy and there is no hope in sight under their control. 

The statement of the conference obtained by Allnews was signed by Kola Ologbodiyan, the party's national publicity secretary. 

Recall that the central bank recently allocated naira at N380 per dollar to the foreign exchange market, a move, analysts called ‘technical devaluation’ of the local currency. The apex bank also moved the highly pegged official rate from N306 to N360 per dollar.

"The APC and Buhari Presidency have turned us into a beggar nation and the world poverty capital with their inherent recklessness and lack of capacity to articulate strategies that will sustain and grow our hitherto robust economy which they took over from the PDP in 2015. 

"Nigerians are all aware that before the PDP left office in 2015, our party had succeeded in growing our economy with policies and programmes that boosted private sector participation to the extent that Nigeria was ranked the third fastest-growing economy, after China and Qatar, with the capacity to lend to other countries

"Today, the sheer incompetence, greed, reckless policies and deep corruption of the APC have reversed all these gains and destroyed our national economic capacities to the extent our nation can no longer finance our national budget. 

"Our nation is currently in shambles with a drifting economy, a devalued currency (N380 to a dollar), collapsed infrastructure, a frightening 23.1% unemployment rate, high cost of essential goods, increased morbidity rate, reduced life expectancy and a despondent citizenry leaving our country in droves," the statement partly read. 

According to the opposition party, the economic situation is worsened with the" reckless foreign borrowing by the APC and its administration which today stands at an alarming $108 billion with no productive repayment plan; funds which have been exposed as being frittered and stolen by APC leaders and the cabal."

It also accused the APC administration of stifling foreign investments and crippling domestic production with its exclusionist policies. 

"It is indeed wearisome that the Buhari administration had chosen to be laid back in the face of serious issues of governance. Nigerians can recall that when oil price dropped to $52 per barrel, below the $57 benchmark for the 2020 N10.95 trillion budget, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, while briefing newsmen at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting on March 4, 2020, admitted that the Government was not taking any measures but waiting, according to her, for a “reasonable time” to act."

The PDP said it is worried over allegations of corruption in the handling of the N1.3 trillion set aside to cushion the effect of COVID-19 on the economy. 

"Our party demands ultimate transparency. The Federal Government should come clean on the source of the intervention, the specific intervention projects where the fund will apply, the level of involvement of other tiers of government and private stakeholders, as well as the mode of disbursements and monitoring." 
 
The party demanded that the COVID-19 interventions be allocated to the three tiers of government for effective delivery and monitoring.

The party however urged the economic stakeholders to articulate ways to effectively diversify the economy and provide jobs using the all-inclusive measures implemented by PDP administrations to effectively grow the economy as well as successfully handle emergencies such as the Ebola virus disease. 
 

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