The Rivers State governor, Siminialayi Fubara, has presented the state’s 2025 Appropriation Bill of 1.19tn to the Victor Oko-Jumbo-led House of Assembly.
Presenting the appropriation bill, Fubara said out of the amount, N462bn was projected for Recurrent Expenditure while Capital Expenditure was to gulp N678bn.
Fubara said the planning reserve stood at N35.7bn with a closing balance of N12.9bn noting that the 44:56% was an indication of his government’s sincere commitment to both infrastructural and human capital development in the state
The governor said the 2025 budget was premised on achieving sustainable economic growth, accelerating the development of the state, and improving the living standards of the people.
He said: “Therefore, it contains policy measures and objectives that will strengthen our capacity to weather possible external shocks from the volatility of the national economy to build the resilience of our economy and advance our collective development and prosperity. It is for this reason that we have the theme for the 2025 Budget as a Budget of inclusive growth and development”.
Fubara said the budget was premised on the assumptions of an oil price benchmark of $80 per barrel; an oil production rate of 1.8 million barrels per day; a USD exchange rate of 1500/1; and a 22% inflation rate.
He said the government also projected improved contributions from the non-oil sectors to the national economy, including substantial receipts from value-added and exchange gains.
He said the government also projected a GDP growth rate of 3.18% for the state, increasing internally generated revenue to not less than 35% of the total Budget, and reducing the fiscal deficit by limiting if not outright freezing resort to domestic borrowing for budget funding and augmentation.
He said the government would expand the internal tax base by bringing more people into the tax net, saving money, and investing more in the critical sectors that would strengthen the State’s economic foundations and enhance development.
Fubara said: “We will further improve the ease of doing business and provide incentives to attract local and foreign direct investments into the state to stimulate economic growth, improve internal revenue generation and enhance job creation.
“The overall objective of this is to pursue as much as possible and achieve a realistic budget that significantly closes the gap between estimates and possible actuals.
“We are therefore confident that the 2025 appropriation estimate is the true reflection of the reality of the state of our economy with reasonable flexibility that allows for eminent shocks from the current challenges with the national economy and macroeconomic frameworks”.
Speaker, the above assumptions and budget policy objectives were derived from the Economic and Fiscal updates, the fiscal strategy paper, and the budget policy statement which adequately examined global dynamics and the current trends with their implication for the national and the state economic performance potentials in addition to the three years historical performance of the state revenue and expenditure.
The governor named the financial sources of the 2025 budget an Internally Generated Revenue of N264.4bn; Statutory Allocation, N18.2bn; Mineral funds N132bn; Value Added Tax N204bn; Refunds Escrow, Paris/ECA N31bn and Refunds from bank charges N27. 5bn.
Others are Excess Crude Account, N20.6bn; Exchange rate gain N25.2bn; Forex equalization, N50bn; other FAAC N50bn; Asset sales; N25bn; Capital receipts, 9.8bn; Proposed internal grants, N60bn; Proposed External Grants N7.5bn; Proposed Loans/Bonds, 250bn and Prior year Balance of N12.9bn
The governor broke down the components of the Recurrent Expenditure as Personnel Emolument N169.7bn; New Recruitments, N49bn; Overhead costs, N20bn; Grants, contributions, and subsidies, N9.6bn; Counterpart pension scheme, N15bn; Gratuities, N60bn; Death Benefits, N18bn and Monthly pensions, N30bn.
Others are Domestic loans interest, N30.2bn; Foreign loan interest, 6.4bn; Domestic loan principal repayment N29bn; Foreign loan, principal repayment N14.97bn; FAAC Deductions, N3.7bn; COT/Charges/General Admin N5bn; Reimbursements, N60m; Harmonization, N840bn and Consolidated Revenue Fund Charges N391bn.
On Sectorial allocations of Capital Expenditure, the governor said the governance would gulp, N213.585bn! Information and Communication N3.404bn; Public Administration, N21.110bn; Finance and Planning, N11.143bn; Agriculture; N30.954bn; Infrastructure, N195bn; Commerce and Investment, 2. 723bn; Culture and Tourism, N2.104bn; Education, N63. 275bn; Health, N97,750bn; Social Development, N15. 477bn! Environment/Sustainable Development N12. 877bn and Judiciary, Law and Justice, N8. 605bn.
Fubara said besides aligning with the fiscal reality, the 2025 budget prioritized the fundamental objectives of building a secure, prosperous, and resilient state with inclusive economic growth, sustainable development, and improved standards of living for everyone.
He said: “We will strive to address the challenges of socio-economic inequality, social exclusion, and poverty by ensuring improved access to food and nutrition, quality education and healthcare, socio-economic infrastructure, jobs and economic empowerment.
“Consequently, our core priorities for the 2025 fiscal year include agriculture, economic growth, quality education and healthcare delivery, basic infrastructure, and social investments”.
Fubara said it was obvious that his government had risen to the challenge of the development of Rivers with courage and commitment.
He said despite the many challenges facing his administration, it had not lost focus on the expectations of the people on good governance, development, and improving the living standards of everyone.
He said: “Under our stewardship, we have fulfilled our solemn duty of sound fiscal management and proven our profound commitment to accelerating economic growth and unprecedented expansion of socio-economic infrastructure and human capital development.
“We have also pursued new approaches to investment promotion and created an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and create employment opportunities for our teaming youths.
“No other government in recent history has delivered more capital investments and captured the confidence of our people in our ability and commitment to deliver strategic development and the building of prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive progress in Rivers State than we have done.
“Therefore, today we are presenting a budget that would empower us to consolidate the past gains, stimulate further investments into our economy, and take our dear State to the next level of economic growth, social progress, and shared prosperity.
Speaking on the performance of the 2024 budget, Fubara said N800. 392bn was budgeted adding that out of the total revenue, N283. 235bn was expected from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and N231,057bn from internal revenue sources, including taxes, capital receipts, and loans.
But he said as of November 2024, the total FAAC receipts were N340,771bn, about N57,536bn more than the projected figures for the fiscal year.
He said: “The favourable revenue performance from FAAC resulted from enhanced revenues from our share of the Value-Added Taxes and Forex Exchange Gains. Similarly, as of the end of November 2024, the internally generated revenue was N282. 557bn which was over N51bn more than the N231. 057bn budgetary projections.
He said: “We are expecting the internally generated revenue for 2024 to close at over N300 billion by the end of December 2024, which is over N100 billion more than the total receipts for 2023.
The governor said it was the first time the state government would record a historic N100bn increase in IGR in a succeeding year.
“Most interestingly, the phenomenal increase was realized without raising or imposing new taxes, which underscores the success of our administration’s commitment to enhancing domestic resource mobilization as the primary source for funding the government’s expenditures and the measures we have put in place to drive this vision.
“The organic increases in our internally generated revenue also show that the State’s domestic economy is on the right path to real and sustainable growth and that it is only a matter of time before we realize our abiding drive for economic self-reliance and sustainability.
“Furthermore, we funded our expenditures and met all our debt repayment obligations for fiscal year 2024 without taking any new loans as a deliberate strategy to reduce deficit financing in line with our commitment to prudent management of available public funds to ensure real and sustainable economic growth and development.
Read Also: Fubara prevented Wike from turning Rivers into his private estate – Odili
“On the expenditure side, the good news is that the 2024 recurrent budget was fully funded, thereby recording a 100 percent implementation.
“In addition to fully meeting our salary, gratuity, and overhead obligations, including the continuous payment of arrears to workers, pensioners, and MDAs respectively, we have also implemented the N85,000.00 minimum wage, which is the highest in the country and matched only by Lagos State.
“Similarly, the 2024 capital budget also recorded a very successful implementation with 100 percent historical performance, in line with our administration’s commitment to transforming the State through extensive infrastructural and human capital development.
*In terms of project execution and delivery, we worked on all the inherited projects and initiated some new legacy projects within the 2024 fiscal year.
“As of today, we have delivered over 30 road projects and numerous schools, health, security, housing, and community development projects across the State”.
