FULL TEXT: Governor Mbah presents 2024 Budget of Disruptive Economic Growth
December 5, 2023
PROTOCOLS
It is with great honor and deep sense of responsibility that I stand before you today to present our 2024 to 2026 Multi Year budget before this hallowed chamber. This event is of even more importance given that it is this administration’s full year budget which would go a long way in setting the pace for the achievement of our growth objectives.
It is not so long ago that we presented the revised budget for 2023 before you honorable members of the House of Assembly, and I must again recognize your expedited consideration of that bill and put on record our appreciation for your commitment.
In line with human nature, we have become accustomed to this level of commitment and therefore, request that you deploy a similar degree of dispatch in your consideration of this current bill.
As you are aware, we have taken a bold view of the growth our state is capable of achieving if we are willing to believe in ourselves and utilize our God-giving human and material resources to their fullest.
Our vision remains to make Enugu one of the top three states in Nigeria in terms of Gross Domestic Products and achieve a Zero per cent rates in our poverty headcount index.
We also intend to grow our GDP from the current level of $4.4 billion to $30 billion before 2031. To achieve this ambitious goals, we have adopted a number of philosophies which have also found expression in this year budget I am presenting today.
The first philosophy is that, private sector investment is critical to the generation of growth that we seek and consequently, we must invest in the factors required to attract private sector investments such as basic infrastructure, and amenities like; roads and water supply, transport services as well as modernization and digitization of our public services and their associated processes.
Secondly, we have taken the view that one of the surest ways of ensuring sustainable eradication of poverty is through the aggressive enhancement of our education, and public health systems.
After all, we know that education correlates all over the globe with economic advancement and prosperity. While health on the other hand, is critical for the optimization of the human resources of any nation or sub national entity.
Finally, but most critically, we have taken the view that reliance on allocations from Federation Account Allocation Committee has not served us well to date. And is unlikely to take us to the Promised Land. Consequently, you will see in this budget a philosophy to maximize our internal revenue generation efforts by improving the efficiency of collections and enhancing the efficacy of government services to the populace and evolving creative new revenue generation sources particularly by optimizing our natural resources.
For example, improved oversight and regulation of mining activities and land assets.
Before going into the current budget proposal, permit me to cast a glance backwards at our performance in the past period. By end of year 2022, this honorable house approved a budget size of N160,602,416,770. During the third quarter of 2023 there was need for a supplementary budget to accommodate new projects and programmes arising from priorities of the new administration in Enugu state and also to reflect the price variation due to inflation. The budget was therefore revised to a tune of N224,697,899,063 . Based on this revised budget, we have been able to make some appreciable progress in fulfilling our promises during the integral over the last few months in our view, some of the notable achievements have included photos we have recently launched the ensemble then water skin at night mile, which has a daily production capacity of 70,000 cubic meters. This translates to 70 million liters of clean water combined with the production of 50 million litres from Algeria. This gives us a total daily volume of 120 million litres a daily as a base less than 2 million liters. We bet on assumption of office. These achievements disrupts over two decades, waters casting in Enugu our band and also fulfills our promise to Indiana goo to provide Enugu urban residents with water within 180 days. We have awarded contracts for the construction and rehabilitation work on the over 81 roads including several urban routes, as well as some priority non urban routes, such as the dualization of elegoo, airport flight van jullie, K open algo and a boy border approximately 22 kilometers and also construction of all or bow a man can neki II came road of approximately 45 kilometers. As you may be aware, walk on this roads have since commenced. We have also expanded the national cash transfer register the federal government from 43,000 to 260,000. Beneficiaries yes function was to accommodate more poor and vulnerable residents in the state, in line with our vision to eradicate poverty. We have commenced the accumulation of 300,000 hectares of land for our land bank, which will be made available to corporate farmers for massive cultivation of agro produce. In line with this one partner, partner firm is already planting cassava under the pilot scheme of cassava to ethanol program in our Navy in Canada is another one in local government areas. Related to this. We have advanced conversations with key development agencies for the development of special agro Processing Zones in the three senatorial areas of the states. We also held the Enugu state investment roundtable, which attracted the best of the private sector, as well as development partners, such as the AfDB Afreen, Xin FC do, the World Bank and many others. Thus signaling our government’s zeal to transform Enugu state into private sector driven economy in line with our commitments to reinvent our education system in Enugu state, we are constructing 260 Smart model basic schools across the 260 words in the state, which will rank amongst the best in the country. The pilots smart model basic school. You know, in Canada, its local government area is now ready for commissioning. And similar schools will be replicated in all the 260 worlds across the 17 local government council in the state. We are also in the process of constructing 260 type two primary health care centers across the 260 words in the state to cater for the health needs of rural communities which are paramount in our healthcare agenda. Last but not the least, in recognition that no economic growth is possible without security. We have ensured this continuation of the ignorable Monday sit at home campaign and boosted the security framework within the states with introduction of the district’s response squad, which has recorded several successes, effectively bringing the crime rate in Enugu state to a bare minimum. We are going further by commencing the installation of CCTV surveillance network around the states work is at an advanced stage on this initiative. They 2024 to 2026 Multi a budget is named budget of disruptive economic growth this is an account of the fact that it is structured to drive growth in a markedly different pattern than we have attempted to do here that this departure from the usual is most apparent in two main areas. Firstly, our approach to basic education where we’re bringing into effect our cut off program through the development of the 260 model schools I had alluded to earlier.. This scores are unique not only in the fact that they will house the entire basic school classes from crash to jazz three, but also in terms to the significant changes we are making to the curriculum of the children where we will be infusing new subjects areas like technology robotics, artificial intelligence, etc. In addition, the approach to teaching in these schools will be experiential. With extensive use of practical examples, dramatization gamification, among others. These naturally requires extensive retraining of our teachers to enable them grasp these new learning approaches, as well as the various technology based teaching and learning tools. Which are deployed for example tablets, interactive whiteboards, learning management system, and many others. Beyond the heart element of learning, we will also infuse many software elements such as ethics, morals, critical thinking, and hygiene to prepare our children to become the leaders we need tomorrow. Another major area of positive disruption that finds expression in this budget is our drive to change our approach to public service by infusing the use of technology in this regard, we are in the process of developing a new automated approach to governance that will involve the automation of all the MBAs in the in the government both in terms of how they run their internal operations and in terms of how they serve the populace. Upon completion of this transition to egovernance, it will be possible to initiate most government services without one visiting any government office or physically interacting with any public officer. This will result in increased operational efficiency in government and a higher level of service delivery with fewer revenue leakages. Implementing this will naturally require extensive training and retraining of our public servants to acquaint them with with both the new technological tools required as well as improved working processes to be adopted in executing their work functions under this new dispensation. Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members, permit me to present the summary of the recurrent and capital allocation and its proposed allocations to each sector that makes up this new budget of disruptive economic growth. We are proposing a total budget size of 521,561,386,000 Naira for the 2024 fiscal year as against the approved revised provision of 224,697,899,063 Naira for 2023. This represents 132% increase from the 2023 revised budget. The budget breakdown is as follows recurrent expenditure 107,227,266,000 Naira capital expenditure 414,334,120,000 Naira . That brings a total of 521,561,386,000 Naira in the area of our revenues. We estimated that total recurrent revenue during 2024 will amount to 383,789,000,000 Naira as against the approved revised provision for 2023 of 143,571,592,917 naira. The recurrent revenues for 2024 are broken down as follows. Opening Balance 11 billion naira internally generated revenue 252,789,000,000 Naira statutory revenue 60 billion naira excess crude and others 16 billion naira Value Added Tax 44 billion naira bringing our total recurrent revenue to 383,789,000,000 Naira for 2024 fiscal year recurrent expenditure which is proposed at 107,227,266,000 Naira is made up of personnel costs 47,583,677,000 Naira overhead costs 41,804,698,000 Naira consolidated revenue fund charges 17,838,891,000 Naira. With a total recurrent expenditure at 107,000,000,277 227,266,000 Naira this translates to a net recurrent revenue of 276,561,734,000 Naira which is those transferred to the Capital Development Fund. The total capital expenditure for the year 2024 is projected at 414,334,120,000 naira. It’s a as against 135,716,099,000 603,603 Naira for the 2023 revised budget. The current capital expenditure estimate will be funded from the sum of 276,561,000,070 734,000 Naira to be transferred from the consolidated revenue fund and the capital receipts of 137,772,386,000 Naira to be realized as follows external and internal aid and grants 27,922,386,000 Naira public private partnership 6,100,000,000 Naira domestic loans slash burrowing receipts 71 billion naira international loans against large burrowing receipts that is 2,750,000,000 Naira on a sectoral basis, the capital expenditure is broken down as follows. Administration sector 20,877,662,350 Naira economic sector 207,837,753,513 Naira law and justice sector 1,225,643,490 Naira regional sector 1,144,550,000 Naira social services sector 182,949,510,648 Naira as I mentioned earlier education is a key plank in our strategy to eradicate poverty in our states. Consequently 134,587,982,647 Naira 78 Cocoa, representing 73.6% of the social service sector has been marked to help reinvent education in our states by developing the new Smart Schools, which I mentioned earlier, as well as reposition, repurposed repositioning, our senior secondary and tertiary institutions by training and retraining teachers and updating our curricula across all levels. of Education to infuse technology and technology appreciation skills. These capital expenditure on education combined with a planned recurrent expenditure in the sector will bring our total spend on education to 33% of the total budget. Healthcare remains Paramount especially in these challenging times. These books budget allocates the sum of 21,777,421,000 Naira to enhance health care facilities as found assets to quality healthcare services and bolster our response to health emergencies. Our goal is to ensure every citizen has access to reliable and efficient health care. We pledged to upgrade healthcare facilities ensure the availability of essential medicines and implement initiatives to enhance public health awareness in particular we have commenced the construction of 260 type two primary health care centers across the 260 words in the states to cater for the health needs of our rural communities
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sam Udekwe is a journalist working in the News and Current Affairs department, Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS) Enugu. He is well trained in all genres of journalistic venture.
Mr Sam read Mass Communication, graduating all with Distinction in National Diploma, Higher National Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma at IMT, Enugu and Madonna University, Okija, Anambra state, while he is presently on his M.Sc programme also in Mass Communication, at National Open University of Nigeria.
He is currently the NUJ Chairman, Enugu state.
samowailo@gmail.com
