Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has presented N567.2 billion 2024 budget to the House of Assembly for approval.
Mr Otti made the presentation on Tuesday at the assembly chamber in Umuahia, the state capital.
The governor said his administration found it very demanding to work with the 2023 budget of N160.5 billion which was submitted by the immediate past governor of the state, Okezie Ikpeazu, in November 2022.
He said the 2023 budget was designed “on the basis of assumptions that no longer hold” given that there was a steep rise in inflation, which he said, distorted the economic plans of businesses and governments at the beginning of the year.
“On the basis of facts available to my office, we have done quite well in the implementation of the 2023 budget of N160.5 billion and the projection is that we would go well past the 60 per cent budget implementation mark achieved in 2022,” he said.
The new budget
Mr Otti, while presenting the 2024 budget, said the budget will help his administration to target expansion of the state’s public infrastructure in line with his new development targets.
The governor said, in the new budget, he plans to scale up access and quality service delivery in the social sector.
He said the 2024 budget estimate, in nominal terms, represents more than N400 billion rise from the 2023 estimate, “although when adjusted for inflation and fall in the value of the naira, the reality becomes starkly different.”
Mr Otti noted that recurrent expenditure in the 2024 budget accounts for 16 per cent, while capital expenditure accounts for 84 per cent of the total budget.
“Of the proposed figure, the government’s estimated total revenue is N166,077,717,058 including earnings from our Internally Generated Revenue channels, Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, grants from multilateral organisations and income from other revenue sources that will be available to the state government over the course of the accounting year,” he said.
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“We plan to finance the deficit of N401, 162, 378, 914 partly by new borrowings estimated at N385, 271,027, 214. Fifty per cent of this borrowing will be sourced externally, whilst the balance will be procured domestically,” the governor added.
He stressed that all borrowing in the 2024 budget fiscal year would be committed to capital projects, adding that the impacts made from the projects will “generate the sufficient returns that would enable the state to meet her obligation to the creditors smoothly and ultimately pay off the loans in due course.”
Sectoral allocations
Mr Otti said 44.76 per cent of the budget would be committed to the economic sector, under which work would get 16.97 per cent, land and housing would receive 9.9 per cent, 5.12 per cent would be committed to agriculture and finance would receive 5.23 per cent.
He added that 40.07 per cent of the budget would be committed to the social sector under which education will receive a total of 20 per cent, healthcare will get 15.04 per cent while youth and sports development will get 3.17 per cent of the budget.
Pay rise for Abia civil servants
Mr Otti announced a pay rise for civil servants in Abia State to make up for the economic hardship in the country.
“As I promised at a media briefing earlier in the month, we shall be implementing a pay rise for our civil servants to reflect the present economic realities in the country.
“This shall be implemented in the New Year and provision for that has been made in the 2024 budget,” he said.
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