The Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has presented a budget of N258.9bn for 2023 to the state House of Assembly for approval.
Presenting the budget tagged, “Budget of Acceleration”, on Thursday, Soludo said the figure was higher than N170bn in 2021, with about N89bn.
He said that the budget was made up of N164.2bn capital expenditure, representing 63.2 per cent, and N95.5bn recurrent expenditure, representing 36.8 per cent.
According to him, the budget had a deficit of N13bn.
He informed the state House of Assembly that he had not borrowed the N100bn loan approved for him by the Seventh Assembly.
He said, “So far, we have not borrowed a kobo. We have, however, applied for N90bn out of the approved N100bn, and when it comes, we plan to roll it over as part of the 2023 financing.
“As a reflection of our people’s priority needs, about N91.8bn or 56 per cent of the total capital expenditure is devoted to roads, transport, power and urban regeneration that the average citizen can feel, see, or use.
“Education, health, youths, and women and vulnerable groups have their capital votes more than doubled.
“We appropriately budgeted for counterpart funding to catalyse resource inflows from our partners and expenditure on security remains barely unchanged in spite of increased challenges.”
The governor said global supply disruptions as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine had immense consequences on countries like Nigeria.
He said Nigeria was faced with crunchy economic challenges under an unsustainable macroeconomic framework, increasing fiscal insolvency, high inflation, poverty and youth unemployment.
He identified exchange rate shocks, disruptions and declining oil production as other challenges.
The governor described the flooding that had engulfed more than 50 per cent of the state land mass as a menace which needed national emergency.
“Daunting as the above may seem, we remain resolute with our eyes firmly focused on the ball,” he added.
The budget was referred to the committees for sectorial dissection following adoption of the first and second motions.
The Speaker of the House, Mr Uche Okafor, commended the governor for his leadership qualities and promised that the House would do due diligence on the budget to ensure its speedy passage.
Okafor reiterated that in barely eight months of assumption of office, the Soludo administration had recorded tremendous achievements as the government of inclusiveness, assuring that the budget would be given accelerated hearing.
