Gov Peter Mbah Presents ₦971bn 2025 Budget To Enugu State House Of Assembly
Gov Peter Mbah presents the 2025 budget to the Enugu State House of Assembly in Enugu on November 26, 2024.
Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, has proposed a record ₦971bn budget bill for the 2025 fiscal year to the Enugu State House of Assembly.
Presenting the estimates entitled “Budget of Exponential Growth and Inclusive Prosperity” on the floor of the House on Tuesday, Mbah said the proposed estimates comprised ₦837.9bn capital expenditure, representing 86 per cent of the budget estimates, and a recurrent expenditure component of ₦133.1bn, representing only 14 per cent of the budget.
This topples the record-holding 2024 budget of ₦521.5bn, consisting of ₦414.3bn capital expenditure, representing 79 per cent of the total budget and ₦107.2bn recurrent expenditure, representing about 21 per cent.
However, like the 2024 budget, the 2025 budget proposal emphasizes huge investment in education as well as basic but critical infrastructure and amenities like roads and bridges, water supply, transport services, energy, modernization and digitization of public services and associated processes, with the Education sector getting a lion-share of ₦320.6bn, representing over 33 per cent of the total budget for two consecutive years.
Mbah said that this was in line with his administration’s target of poverty eradication and an inclusive development model, which ensures that no one or segment of the society is left behind.
The governor equally announced a growth in the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, from ₦37.4bn at the end of 2023 to ₦144.7bn in September 2024, representing a radical 286.2 per cent increase in line with the administration’s deliberate effort to wean the state off reliance on FAAC allocations.
Addressing the House, Mbah said, “In crafting this budget, we have sort to continue to lay the right foundation in Enugu to enhance the economy and attract even more private investment.
“In spite of the dreary economic environment across the country, for us here in Enugu, we have elected to remain bullish in our aspirations and to double down on our commitment to elevate our state to top three status in terms of GDP nationally and eradicate poverty from our midst.
“Indeed, we see this as a vindication of our previously espoused view that sustainable national growth can only be driven from the sub-national units to the federal levels, and not the other way round as we have attempted to do to date.
“It is on account of this that we are proposing to the House of Assembly today, a budget with a total envelope of N971,084,000,000.00 as against the budget for the 2024 fiscal year which totalled ₦521,561,386,000.00.
“This represents an 86.4 per cent increase from the 2024 revised budget. The budget is broken down as follows: N133,140,000,000.00 as Recurrent Expenditure and ₦837,944,000,000.00 as Capital Expenditure,” he said.
On sources of revenue, he said, “In the area of our revenues, we estimated that total Recurrent revenues during 2025 will amount to ₦692,179,000,000 as against the approved revised provision for 2024 of ₦383,789,000,000.00.
“The Recurrent revenues for 2025 are broken down as follows: opening balance – ₦32,000,000,000; Internally Generated Revenue, IGR – ₦509,947,000,000; statutory revenue – ₦48,749,000,000; exchange rate differential – ₦26,559,000,000; and Value Added Tax, VAT – ₦74,924,000,000.
“With the total Recurrent Expenditure at ₦133,140,000,000.00, this translates to a Net Recurrent Revenue of ₦559,039,000,000.00, which is thus transferred to the Capital Development Fund.
“The total Capital Expenditure for the year 2025 is projected at ₦837,944,000,000.00 as against ₦414,334,120,000.00 for the 2024 Revised Budget. The Current Capital Expenditure estimate will be funded from the sum of ₦559,039,000,000.00 to be transferred from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and the Capital receipts of ₦278,905,000,000.00 to be realized as follows: External and Internal Aids and Grants – ₦15,000,000,000; other receipts – ₦80,202,000,000; Domestic Loans/Borrowings receipts – ₦55,000,000,000; and International Loans/Borrowings – ₦128,503,000,000.”
Meanwhile, in terms of broad sectors, the Economic Sector got a lion share of ₦462bn, representing 55.1 per cent of the Capital Expenditure, followed by the Social Sector with ₦345.7bn, representing 41.2 per cent.
In terms of specific sectors, Education got 33.2 per cent, the largest chunk, in sync with Mbah’s effort to eradicate poverty and graduate the state to a knowledge-based economy.
“As we must all know by now, Education is both our ‘sword’ and ‘shield’ in this battle to achieve economic growth in our state and banish poverty and want among our population. Consequently, we are maintaining the ambitious direction we charted in 2024 by voting a total of ₦320,609,059,000,00 for that sector. This represents 78% of the social sector of the budget and 33.2% of our Capital Expenditure this year,” he stated.
The governor explained that the 2025 budget would also focus greatly on health, road infrastructure, transport, agriculture, and water sectors, among others.
