Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello on Monday presented the 2024 Budget estimate to the state House of Assembly, being his last budget presentation as Governor of the state.
The estimate, tagged “Budget of Consolidation and Continuity for Inclusive Growth,” has an estimated outlay of N258,278,501,339.00.
ebirareporters.com reports that the budget as presented, is divided into Recurrent Expenditure of N145,736,429,609.00 representing 56.43% and Capital Expenditure of N112,542,071,730.00 representing 43.57%.
Presenting the budget at the newly renovated Assembly Complex in Lokoja, Governor Bello said the draft was to enhance internally generated revenue, repayment of debt owed the state by the Federal Government, and provide more conducive environment for development partners across the world.
“As you will expect, there are several initiatives planned in the draft Budget to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal on our people. These include deliberate provisions to strengthen our social protection interventions, basic rural infrastructure, food production and agricultural value chain, SMEs under the relevant programs of NG-CARES program for results, IFAD VCDP (Value Chain Development Program), APPEALS etc. Efforts will be put in place to seek new partnership with our Development Partners as well as key into the ongoing national wage review negotiations within the limit of the State resources as well as adopting Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicle options as ways to cushion the escalating costs of goods and services on our people.
“Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members, Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2024 Budget focuses on continued provision of physical infrastructure, human capital development, job creation, wealth creation and poverty reduction in our dear State.
“The State Government intends to achieve these through prudent use of resources and scaling up of our expenditures in Health, Education, Agriculture, Water Resources, Environment, Housing and Support for Women and Youth Empowerment programmes.
„Distinguished Honourable Members of Kogi State House of Assembly, with the features that I have highlighted above, it is obvious that the 2024 Budget is much more about our people and the acceleration of the delivery of basic infrastructure and social services to them,” he said.
Governor Bello further noted that the government will specifically accord serious priority to critical areas of the economy such as good governance and leadership, infrastructure development and maintenance, education and human capital development, improved healthcare and social welfare, security and peace building.
Other areas include women empowerment and gender equity, environment and sustainable development, industry and commerce.
He thanked the lawmakers for their honesty, willingness and support, noting that the state has made tremendous progress.
“As Mr. Speaker and the Honourable Members can attest, we met a state that was comatose in 2016 and today we are coming closer to handing over to our successors a state that is measuring decently high on all growth and development indices. The quality of life of our people which we have worked so hard together to uplift these 8 years, has improved verifiably when benchmarked against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Multidimensional Poverty Index.
“Our legacy footprints which looked wildly ambitious when we presented them in our New Direction Blueprint 8 years ago and other policy documents as the need arose are today physical realities standing all over our state for the use of our people, ” Bello stated.
He urged the lawmakers to support the incoming administration of Governor-elect, Ahmed Usman Ododo and extend greater levels of cooperation to him.
The governor looked forward to seeing the incoming administration building on the foundation laid by his, while working together with all stakeholders across the state to achieve even greater heights.
