Edo State state governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Tuesday, August 13, signed into law a revised supplementary budget of N450 billion.
At the event that took place inside the Government House, Benin City, Obaseki, said the government was appropriating about N5 billion to boost the growth of small businesses in the state.
He expressed gratitude to the speaker and members of the State House of Assembly for "promptly and expeditiously approving the revised supplementary budget."
His words: "I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your understanding and appreciation of the issues at stake. Last week, I met with you and the appropriation committee to inform them of the need for a revision of the budget they had earlier approved.
“We had to come back to the House to request a revision and a supplementary allocation of the existing 2024 budget. After proper review and analysis, we found out that the 2023 budget was about N225 billion, and at that time, the exchange rate was about N750.
“It only follows common sense that if we must grow the economy of Edo State, our budget size needed to be doubled. What we have done in Edo is not just to double the budget size but to ensure more efficiency of the budget.”
Continuing, he said: "What is different about this budget, which has been revised is that we are almost certain that we have a 95 percent performance on the budget. As of half a year, we are almost at 100 percent relatively speaking. We don’t see the situation changing at the end of this year.
“What is more important for the Edo people that we represent is that with this supplementary provision, most provisions are now going to capital expenditure. Whereas at the last evaluation, the budget ratio was about 55 percent for capital and 45 percent for recurrent, this appropriation is now 57 percent for capital and 43 for recurrent expenditures. You can see that a lot more efficiency and resources are going to our people.
“We also used the opportunity of this revision to address a very important issue raised during the last citizens’ protest in Nigeria. Edo joined Nigerians to voice out their concerns about the deteriorating welfare of citizens.
“As a state, we can't address all these issues but realized that for many small businesses, because of inflationary pressure, most of their capital has been eroded as they can only trade with 50 percent and earn less.
"With the revised supplementary budget, we attempted to address some of these issues. We are providing in this budget up to N5 billion, which we plan to disburse up to N1 billion monthly to help very small businesses, traders, and farmers access capital. We will use market associations, age groups, and associations in communities where they already have some sort of support for each other as we try to ameliorate the suffering of the Edo people.
“We want to assure you that for the few months left in the life of this administration, our goal is to ensure that we complete all projects started and to leave a solid foundation on which the next administration will build.”
Earlier, the Speaker of the State Assembly, Rt. Hon. Blessing Agbebaku, alongside other members of the House, presented the 2024 revised supplementary budget to the governor.
Presenting the budget, the Speaker noted: “We are here to present to you the 2024 approved revised appropriation law that was passed some hours ago. We all know that at every given point towards the end of the year, there must be a supplementary budget to appropriate areas not captured or appropriate for areas not budgeted for."
