It rebuked the Nigerian government for lacking no strategic economic road map to help the country, while lamenting the mounting debts.
The Youth Party has urged President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to speedily adopt and implement the "Bold Revenue Plan" in order to avoid further plunging the nation into debt and economic crisis.
The party's National Publicity Secretary, Ayodele Adio, disclosed this in a statement in its reaction to the 2022 Budget, obtained by SaharaReporters on Monday.
It rebuked the Nigerian government for lacking no strategic economic road map to help the country, while lamenting the mounting debts.
It stated that, "Given Nigeria's current fiscal state, the Federal Government must speedily adopt and implement the Bold Revenue Plan in other to avoid debt and economic crisis.
"Our current revenue realities cannot move the country forward. If we continue to borrow and do nothing about growing our revenue base as other countries are doing, a severe debt crisis awaits us."
It said that, "the Federal Government has no clear strategy on revenue generation, relying mainly on borrowing such that the country spends 98% of its revenue on debt servicing.
"There is no evidence of a coherent strategy by the Federal Government to improve our revenue substantially and to manage our debts. Even the Director-General of the Debt Management Office has warned that unless the country's revenue profile is raised significantly, the country will face debt sustainability challenges.
"Shockingly, we are currently borrowing to fund a high recurrent expenditure, petrol and electricity subsidy, an expensive National Assembly, over-bloated civil service and the largess of politicians. Meanwhile, the government plans to spend only 5% of the budget on health and 7.9% on education, both of which are less than UNESCO's recommendation of 15% for developing countries."
The Youth Party urged the government, "to adopt its Bold Revenue Plan to rescue the economy.”
"Some of the recommendations in the plan include: the immediate implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act, implementation of the Stephen Oronsanye report to reduce the cost of governance, phased removal of petrol and electricity subsidy, and strict adherence to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which states that budget deficits must not exceed 3%," the party added.