-From SUNNY A. DAVID:

Prof. Charles Soludo, Governor of Anambra State has stated that he has not borrowed a kobo despite the approval by the State 7th Assembly to do so.

The Governor made the declaration while presenting the 2024 draft budget to the Anambra State House of Assembly.

He said, “Mr. Speaker, Honourable members, I don’t want to bore you with all the deliverables in the budget. The full document is before you now. Suffice it to note that the size of the budget is indeed small — in real terms (purchasing power) or even in US dollars— when compared to some years ago.

“Prices of critical inputs, especially for infrastructure delivery, are galloping. But in spite of this, we are determined to maximize value for Ndi Anambra as we are currently doing.

“Recall that the 7th Assembly approved in 2022 for us to borrow N100 billion for infrastructure. We didn’t do so in 2022. For the ongoing 2023 budget, it was assumed that we would borrow N90 billion to fund the budget. Up until now, we have still not borrowed a kobo, and won’t borrow until the end of the year.

“In the proposed 2024 budget, there is a deficit of N120 billion expected to be funded through a facility from financial institution(s).

“Be assured that we won’t borrow unless it satisfies two stringent criteria we have set: a) it must be a concessionary loan; and b) it must be deployed to projects that we can show how they would pay back the loan in the future. Even with an estimated 66% budget performance for 2023, we insist on not borrowing unless it satisfies our set criteria.”

The breakdown of the budget is as follows: “We present a modest budget of N410,132,225,272 for fiscal year, 2024, compared to N258,984,875,905 for 2023 (about 57.8% increase). Recurrent expenditure accounts for N96.2 billion (23.46%) while capital expenditure is N313.9 billion (76.54%).

“Budget deficit is estimated at N120.8 billion. Relative to 2023, some key sectors have significant increases: Administrative sector (50.85%); Economic sector (103.43%); Judiciary Sector (72.9%); Social Sector (60.24%); Education (140.88%); Health (169.55%); Infrastructure investment (119.84%); overhead costs (34.1%); etc.”