There was shock in Rivers State on Monday as the state governor, Siminalayi Fubara presented a 2025 budget proposal of N1.1 trillion to the Victor Oko-Jumbo-led state House of Assembly consisting of just four lawmakers.
Tagged “Budget of Inclusive Growth and Development,” Fubara allocated the sum of N462,254,153,418 to recurrent expenditure and N678,088,433,692 for capital projects.
Presenting the N1,188,962,739,932 bill, Fubara said the budget was premised on achieving sustainable economic growth, accelerating the development of the state, and improving the living standards of the people.
Recall that the governor had in December 2023 presented the 2024 budget to five members of the Edison Ehie-led Rivers House of Assembly, ignoring the majority lawmakers led by Martin Amaewhule.
Speaking during the 2025 budget presentation, Fubara 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.
“Mr Speaker, it is worthy of note that this is the first time the State Government would record a historic N100 billion 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.
“Mr Speaker, on the expenditure side, the good news is that the 2024 recurrent budget was fully funded, thereby recording a 100 percent implementation.”
