Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State, on Monday presented a 2025 budget proposal of N1.1 trillion to the four -member state house of assembly under
Victor Oko-Jumbo as Speaker.
The appropriation bill is tagged the “Budget of Inclusive Growth and Development,”
It comprised N462,254,153,418 as recurrent expenditure and N678,088,433,692 for capital projects, totalling N1,188,962,739,932.
Fubara while presenting the budget said the state has recorded “unprecedented investments and significant impact” in road infrastructure, healthcare, education, and security.
The governor also announced a major boost in the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR) in 2024.
He projected the 2024 IGR would exceed N300 billion by December—an increase of over N100 billion compared to 2023.
Fubara noted that the growth was achieved without introducing new taxes, attributing the success to improved domestic resource mobilisation.
He said the state had met all its 2024 debt obligations without taking new loans, achieving full implementation of its recurrent budget.
“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,” Fubara said.
“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 per cent implementation.”
(vitalnewsngr.com)
