Okpebholo, Otti present ambitious 2025 budgets  

Propose N605.7b, N750.3b to Edo, Abia Assemblies

The duo of governors Monday Okpebholo of Edo State and Alex Otti of Abia State, yesterday, presented the 2025 budget proposals to their various Houses of Assembly.

In Edo, Okpebholo presented the 2025 budget estimate of N605.7 billion to the State House of Assembly for consideration and approval.Tagged ‘Budget of Renewed Hope for a Rising Edo,’ the governor listed five points including security, infrastructural development, healthcare, food sufficiency and education.
 
He also added that the budget was prepared with the aim of achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Federal Government. Okpebholo said the budget estimate was 25 per cent higher than that of 2024.
 
He said the sum of N223 billion, representing 37 per cent, was allocated to recurrent expenditure while N381 billion, representing 63 per cent, was for capital expenditure.
 
The governor gave the sectoral breakdown of the budget as N162 billion for road development across the state, N48 billion for education, N63.9 billion for health, N1.8 billion for the health insurance scheme and N4.5 billion for the agricultural sub-sector.
 
Okpebholo, who explained that the proposed Appropriation Bill was a product of wide consultations, opined that it would ensure accountability and transparency in governance for responsive service delivery to the people of Edo State.
 
He said: “The 2025 proposed budget is designed to achieve the goals of my five-point agenda, which are security, infrastructural, development, healthcare, food sufficiency and education.
 
“Agriculture plays a pivotal role in food production, as well as revenue generation and job creation. It is, therefore, the desire of this administration to strengthen the agricultural sector, particularly in the areas of farm mechanisation. We shall pay special attention to the security of our farmers and ensure our farmlands are safe.

Also, the Abia State Governor, Otti, also presented an N750.28 billion 2025 budget outlay to  the state Assembly, tagging it, ‘Sustaining The Momentum.’
The governor proposed N611.7 billion or 82 per cent for capital projects and N138.6 billion for recurrent expenditure covering personnel costs, social benefits and debt servicing.
 
He said that looking at the 2024 figures, the size of the proposed capital expenditures for 2025 is raised by 29 per cent, while that of the recurrent is raised by about 34 per cent. He added that N55 billion is strategically budgeted for various ongoing projects in 2025, which cut across 17 local councils, adding that N4 billion was also captured, which will be channelled to revamping the Umuahia Regional Water Scheme.
 
According to Otti, the state achieved great milestones on major development frontiers in the last 18 months because of the excellent working relationship between the executive and the legislature. He, however, said that the state has not yet achieved 100 per cent of the target in the 2024 fiscal year because of a combination of mostly external factors but achieved very impressive outcomes in key governance.