Barely five months after assenting to the 2024 appropriation bill by the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, the State House of Assembly has shored up the budget to N409, 217,894,248,87 billion.
BELLNEWS reports that the governor had on December 22, 2023, assented to N342.825,969,909,21 billion appropriation bill, which was N17.5 billion higher than the N321.4 billion earlier presented to the House.
BELLNEWS noted that the raising of the budget to N409.2 billion was sequel to the House’s consideration and approval of the Governor Obaseki’s letter requesting a revision of the 2024 budget.
The lawmakers, while speaking in favour of the revised/supplementary budget, noted that it would enable the governor to finish his eight-year administration of the state well.
Moving the motion, Charity Aiguobarueghian, the Majority Leader of the House, noted that the supplementary budget was necessary for the state government to get legislative backing for the implementation of the N70,000 new minimum wage approval for the state’s workers recently.
Charity, also opined that it would also allow the governor to complete all the ongoing projects awarded.
Other lawmakers that spoke in favour of the supplementary budget include, Maria Edeko (PDP), the deputy speaker, Eric Okaka, (APC), the minority leader of the House, Eigbiremonlen Fada Sunday, (PDP), Esan Central and Ugabi Kingsley Oghenakhogie (APC), Etsako East constituencies.
They all noted that, if approved, the revised supplementary budget would give the government the financial enablement to complete all ongoing projects and thereby eliminate cases of abandoned projects.
The House, at the committee of the whole, however, shored up the 2024 fiscal year budget to N409.2 billion, an increase of N66.4 billion.
In the new supplementary budget, recurrent expenditure is now N182, 446,255,325, 16 billion, while capital expenditure stood at N226, 771, 634, 923, 71billion as against the earlier assented budget of N154, 276,225,868,96 billion and N188,549,744,040,26 billion, respectively.
The Speaker of the House, Blessing Agbebaku, who summed up the deliberation, said a clean copy of the approval will be sent to the state governor for his assent.