Ondo 2024 Budget: Acting Gov. Aiyedatiwa Presents N384.533 Billion Appropriation Bill To The House of Assembly.
The Acting Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa has presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N384.533 to state House of Assembly.The Bill which was tagged Billion Christened Budget of Economic Resilience for consideration and approval with some of the specific objectives of investing in human capital development with renewed vigiour and rejig independent Revenue collection for attainment of financial Resilience and sustainability.
According to the Acting Governor, he said” Mr. Speaker, let me furthermore use this opportunity to appreciate our people for their understanding, endurance and sacrifice in this period of economic challenges occasioned by the painful but inevitable removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government. Our efforts at providing measures in the form of food items, cash transfers, salary adjustment, payment of arrears of pension and gratuity, provision of farm inputs, etc to our people to cushion the effects, will continue…”
He said the Budget captured the twelve critical sectors of the government of which the infrastructural development with 28.8% have the lion share of the budget in the analysis of the breakdown. Mr. Speaker, in line with the National Charts of Accounts (NCOA) which Ondo State has subscribed to at the level of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), and which is also in consonance with international best practices, government functions have been classified into 12 sectors for better understanding. Accordingly, the sectoral breakdown of the proposed Budget is as follows:
SECTOR
2024 ALLOCATION
% 2024
Administration of Justice
16,389,110,486.12
4.3%
Agricultural Development
31,816,008,874.01
8.3%
Education
47,729,164,261.85
12.4%
Environment and Sewage Management
8,551,879,882.87
2.2%
General Administration
32,574,349,199.07
8.5%
Health
29,809,134,375.97
7.8%
Information
2,228,802,993.29
0.6%
Infrastructural Development
95,482,176,340.36
24.8%
Legislative Administration
6,472,161,659.19
1.7%
Public Finance
82,413,990,850.80
21.4%
Regional Development
12,646,995,272.10
3.3%
Community Development
14,465,344,834.76
3.8%
Trade and Industry
3,953,880,969.61
1.0%
In another development, the Acting said the Budget was reviewed upward due to the effects caused as a removal of the fuel subsidy that have made the price of the goods and services skyrocketed.Mr. Speaker, on 29th May this year, Mr. President, during his inauguration pronounced a total removal of fuel subsidy. This has occasioned a major shift in the economic landscape by triggering high transport cost, galloping food prices, among others. Besides the aforementioned upheavals, the fuel subsidy removal has also caused a dramatic change in the parameters earlier used for 2023 Budget. This was the reason the budget was reviewed upward to N313,144,925,983.00, as consequently passed into law by this Honourable House.
Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members, the cumulative target revenue for January to September 2023 was N206.984 billion but the total actual revenue generated during the period was N158.515 billion which represents 76.6% performance level. On the expenditure side, Personnel Cost gulped N45.106 billion, amounting to 76%. This high percentage was occasioned by the priority attention given to regular payment of workers’ salaries and allowances, as a way to cushion the challenges of fuel subsidy removal. Also, at the end of the same period, i.e September 2023, the sum of N21.675 billion was spent as Overheads to run government’s activities; N7.651billion given as grants to our tertiary institutions while N12.304 billion was paid to pensioners as gratuities and monthly pensions. Within the same period, the sums of N9.874 billion and N8.197 billion were committed to servicing our debts and as statutory transfers, respectively. The Capital expenditure was N38.544 billion as against N109.605 billion earmarked for the same period.
Response, the Honourable Speaker Rt Hon Olamide said the members of the house would ensure that the budget would be given accelerated passage after the examination of the contents by the various committee that are concerned to work on the documents.
