2025 Fiscal Year: Education takes the lead as Gov Nwifuru presents N396.58bn budget to State Assembly

Governor Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi state, Thursday presented a proposed appropriation bill of N396.60 billion to the State House of Assembly.

 

The proposal has a capital expenditure of N284.5billion and a recurrent expenditure of N112.1biliion.

 

The proposal gave the highest attention to the Economic and Social sectors with N200.132billion respectively. These represented 50.46% and 35.60% of the budget proposal respectively.

 

Under the sector, education have the highest allocation of Seventy billion, One hundred and forty-three million, Three hundred and eighty-six thousand naira (N70,143,386,000.00), a 17.76% increase from the 2024 budget.

 

Following this is the Health sector with Thirty-nine billion, Twelve million, Five hundred and sixty-three thousand naira N39bn, having an increase of 111.03% from the previous year’s budget.

 

Administrative, law and justice sectors were allocated N50.9bn, representing 22.8%, and N4.1bn, representing 1.04% of the total budget, among others.

 

Proposed major sources of financing for the budget were Statutory Allocation and Internally Generated Revenue.

 

Addressing the Assembly on the proposed budget christened “Budget of economic and social development”, Nwifuru expressed optimism that the proposed estimates would promote industrialisation, economic growth for the state, and an improved standard of living for the citizens.

 

The Governor emphasized that the priority attention given to the education sector was based on his administration’s belief that educational training should be repositioned to guarantee entrepreneurial knowledge and the acquisition of skills for economic self-reliance at all levels.

 

He explained: “Pursuant to this, therefore, we have introduced many reforms in the curriculum of the basic and secondary education sectors to emphasize technology and science.

 

“To give credence to this, our administration has set out to rejig teaching and learning in public schools through the employment of teachers with bias in technology and entrepreneurial education.”

 

Governor Nwifuru who took the opportunity to deliver his scorecard to the Assembly based on the performance of the previous year’s budget assured of his administration’s continued commitment to addressing the people’s needs in spite of the prevailing harsh economic realities.

 

“The task of governance is not an easy one, and the task of meeting people’s needs is even more challenging due to multiplicity of human wants, but we are determined to steadily pursue our commitment as outlined in the People’s Charter of Needs, the guiding compass of our administration to logical conclusion.

 

“We acknowledge that we are not yet where we ought to be, but we have made significant progress.

 

“We will not relent until we reach the shore,” he stated.

 

While soliciting for Ebonyi people’s cooperation and understanding, he prayed the Assembly to give the proposed budget a speedy legislative attention.

 

“Mr. Speaker and dear Distinguished members of this great Assembly, it is my earnest desire that this budget proposal be given speedy and favourable consideration for the achievement of its lofty plans for the State and the people.

 

The proposed budget was accepted following a motion moved by the Leader of the House, Kingsley Ikoro representing Afikpo North west state constituency and seconded by the Deputy Chief Whip, Lucas Arinze Chukwu representing Ishielu south.