By Akakan Umoh
Akwa Ibom State Government, Tuesday, announced N955 billion 2025 budget proposal to the Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, appealing for its quick passage into law.
The budget proposal, christened “Budget of Consolidation and Expansion,” includes N300 billion for recurrent expenditures and N655 billion for capital expenditures.
The 2025 proposal is three per cent higher than the revised 2024 budget provision of N923.4 billion which is still before the lawmakers for consideration and approval.
Akwa Ibom Governor Umo Eno who presented the budget proposal to the state lawmakers said the 2025 budget is “predicated on an oil benchmark of $75.00 per barrel at a production rate of 2.12 million barrels per day with an estimated exchange rate of N1,400 /US$, in line with the National Budget benchmark projections.”
“The National GDP has been projected at a 3.68 per cent growth rate with a national inflation rate of 32.8 per cent,” Mr Eno added.
The Akwa Ibom State Government pegged the recurrent revenue for the 2025 fiscal year at N830 billion, an increase of three per cent when compared with N803.7 billion in the revised 2024 provision.
A breakdown indicates that the state government is proposing to get N80 billion from Internally Generated Revenue, N20 billion from Statutory Revenue, N135 billion for Derivation Revenue, N60 billion for 13 per cent derivation arrears, N455 billion from Exchange Gain, Augmentation, and others.
The administration is projecting to receive N5 billion from Excess Crude, N70 billion for Value Added Tax, and N5 billion from Ecological funds.
A breakdown of the N300 billion recurrent expenditure shows that N115.7 billion is for Personnel Costs, while N184.3 billion is for Overhead costs.
2024 budget recap
While reviewing the 2024 budget, Governor Eno said as of October the state government had received N801 billion as recurrent revenue, representing 168 per cent of what was proposed in the budget.
“The sum of N100.522 billion was realised from other capital Receipts excluding recurrent surplus. This represents 43.1 per cent of the pro-rated approved provision for the period.
“As of October, a total of N328.003 billion was spent on Capital programmes which represent 80 per cent of the pro-rated provision for the period,” Mr Eno told the lawmakers.
Reeling out his achievements, Mr Eno said that in the last 18 months in office, he has received four aircraft for the state-owned airline Ibom Air, bringing the airline’s total fleet to nine.
He said he has been informed that the airline has returned to profitability this year.
He pledged to restructure Ibom Specialty Hospital to operate under the same model as Ibom Air.
“In the Humanitarian or Poverty Alleviation and Social Investment Schemes, we have done extensive interventions here. We are committed to building 400 humanitarian homes before the end of our first term.
To date, 42 of those homes have already been completed and handed over to the beneficiaries, and 95 are ready to be given out while work is ongoing on the remaining,” Mr Eno said.
He further listed the building of Model Primary Schools and Primary Healthcare Centres across the state and the payment of over N37 billion as gratuities to state workers.
While thanking the lawmakers for their support, the governor appealed for the speedy passage of the budget.
