The governor disclosed that there is only about 57.8 percent increase in the present budget compared to the 2023 budget of over N280 billion.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo has presented a draft budget of N410 billion for Anambra State in 2024.
Soludo presented the budget estimate to the State House of Assembly in Awka, the Anambra State capital on Tuesday.
The governor disclosed that there is only about 57.8 percent increase in the present budget compared to the 2023 budget of over N280 billion.
While the Recurrent expenditure accounts for N96.2 billion, the Capital expenditure is N313.9 billion, indicating that 77 percent of the entire budget is targeted at Capital expenditure.
The governor said that with the budget, the state is changing gears towards the promised transformation agenda for a liveable and prosperous smart mega city.
GGM position; Henry
The 2024 budget on the face value is very ambitious and looks good but regrettably budgeting system in Nigeria is becoming a mere academic exercise cum bragging rights among the governors with very few of them willing and able to implement them.
Granted,@ Soludo & his team attained 66% implementation of last year’s 256 billion which is a novelty.
But these years own is not going to be a tea party in the sense that it already has a deficit of 120 billion so in real sense the budget is around 290 billion in practical terms.
When you cross reference the budget vis a vis total of @ Anambra’s annual igr of 24 billion,fg annual allocation of 60 billion, lg annual allocation of 30.2 billion,
Security vote 24 billion,ecological fund,capital receipt, 13% derivation 20 billion then may be when you add 200 million dollars from Afrexim ie 200 billion naira, you will have a total of 334 billion.
So @ Soludo might have to borrow if can actually fund the ambitious budget.
However, if you look at the sectoral outlook eg education, Health etc and the percentages allocated to them, the budget appears promising.
One can only hope they could attain @ least 70% for 2024.
