The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has faulted the country’s 2024 budget of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Chairman of NESG, Niyi Yusuf, expressed this criticism on Thursday in its sectoral analysis of the 2024 budget, faulting the 3.5 trillion allocation to the health and education sectors.
Tinubu presented a N27.5 trillion budget to the National Assembly on Wednesday last week.
The sector-by-sector budget allocations christened ‘Renewed Hope’ indicated that security and defence received N6.75 trillion, twice the figure for education and health.
Yusuf bemoaned that health and education allocations were lower in the 2024 Appropriation Bill than their respective levels in the 2023 approved budget.
He stressed that the budget allocation to both sectors was far below the global benchmarks.
“The allocations to the health and education sectors are far below the global benchmarks of 15 per cent (2001 Abuja Declaration) and 15- 20 per cent (UNESCO standards), respectively,” he said.
