From Isaac Ojo, Awka
Gov Soludo of Anambra State on Tuesday presented a budget proposal of over four hundred and N10 billion to the state House of Assembly.
The governor tagged the budget “Changing gears: The transformation agenda begins”
He said that over the past twenty months, he has intentionally focused on judiciously implementing the budgets to address several of the foundational challenges and the results are beginning to show.
The governor also used the occasion to recount the landmark achievements of his administration since he took over the rein of governance.
Gov Soludo said, “Consequently, and in spite of the humongous need, we present a modest budget of N410,132,225,272 for fiscal year, 2024, compared to N258,984,875,905 for 2023 (about 57.8% increase). Recurrent expenditure accounts for N96.2 billion (23.46%) while capital expenditure is N313.9 billion (76.54%). Budget deficit is estimated at N120.8 billion.
“Relative to 2023, some key sectors have significant increases: Administrative sector (50.85%); Economic sector (103.43%); Judiciary Sector (72.9%); Social Sector (60.24%); Education (140.88%); Health (169.55%); Infrastructure investment (119.84%); overhead costs (34.1%); etc.
“In the 2024, our students and teachers will smile as never before. Our youths and Anambra students in tertiary institutions will smile even more. The poor and the vulnerable persons have their back covered.
“Another 100,000 households or more will receive 10 or more seedlings of coconut, palm, ukwa, pawpaw, soursop, etc per household. We are mainstreaming the sports economy, and the state football team will debut in 2024.
“Several creative sectors other than tech will also be promoted. Yes, we will deepen our structural reforms regarding the delivery mechanism that emphasizes public-private-community partnerships (PPCP) especially in service delivery to the grassroots including the zero-pothole programme.”
