An advocacy group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, has called on the Federal Government to drop the proposed cut in the budgetary allocations to health and basic education or be prepared for litigation.
The group described as illegal, the proposal by the Federal Government to cut N26.51bn and N50.76bn from budgetary allocations to basic health care and education, respectively.
It demanded a reversal of the planned budgetary cuts within 14 days, threatening to sue the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the National Assembly should its demand be ignored.
In an April 18 letter by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oludare, SERAP argued that there were a lot of other items in the budget, whose allocations the government could slash, instead of cutting budgetary allocations to the critical sectors which have direct negative impact on the masses.
SERAP said, “The cuts would leave the poorest and most vulnerable people without access to these essential public goods and services, and without anywhere to turn, and despite the COVID-19 crisis.
“This would put both the government and the National Assembly in breach of their constitutional and international human rights and anti-corruption obligations.
“Continuing to neglect these basic public goods and services to sustain the apparently lavish lifestyles of members of the National Assembly and other powerful politicians would exacerbate poverty, inequality, marginalisation and impunity in the country.”
The group noted, “The authorities’ approach to National Assembly and the Presidency budgets ought to be ‘do more with less.’ While we understand that the country is facing difficult choices in budget allocations, the authorities should have prioritised cuts in National Assembly and Presidency budgets to increase the allocations to healthcare and education.”
