By CHARLES IWUOHA

Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, has signed into law a budget of N750,282,200,000 for the 2025 fiscal year.

Assenting the appropriation bill yesterday, Friday, December 27, 2024, Otti commended members of the Abia State House of Assembly for giving the bill an accelerated hearing and passage.

He stated that the budget would give his government the impetus to continue to deliver on its promises to Abians.

“This budget that was passed is a budget that will give us the impetus to continue to fire on all cylinders to ensure that our people are living a good life.

“I want to thank specially, the House members and the leadership of the House for doing such a thorough job in record time. I want to commend you for being thorough. That's actually what our government is about.

“We pride ourselves as a serious-minded government, so anything we present, we are ready for scrutiny, and I want to thank you for a great job you did in scrutinizing the budget, disagreeing in a few areas, and also being flexible enough to accept when reasonable responses are given,” Otti stated.

The Governor, who said that the budget is a budget of sustained momentum, maintained that the government is deliberate in tagging the budget so because it is the second budget the present administration is rolling out.

According to him, “When we say sustained momentum, we know that we have taken off and the challenge is to continue because the easiest thing to do is to accelerate and deaccelerate”.

“We can assure you that this government has its eyes on the ball and will continue to do those things we promised our people that will take this state out of poverty; that will take this state out as one of the dirtiest States like it was in 2023.”

Governor Otti explained that the budget demonstrates his push for infrastructural development having allocated 82% of the entire budget to capital expenditures.

“Our push for infrastructural development is demonstrated in this budget because when you have capital expenditure over 80 percent, it speaks to what you want to do with infrastructure, things that would out-last all of us,” he said.

He reiterated that he dedicated about 82 percent of the total envelope to capital expenditure and a meagre 18 percent to recurrent expenditure despite the challenges of higher wages occasioned by the implementation of the new national minimum wage and regular payment of pensions.

The Governor said that some of the projects that kicked off in 2023 would be delivered in 2025 including Port Harcourt road in Aba, Umuahia – Uzuakoli – Abiriba – Ohafia road, the Ohafia – Arochukwu to the boundary in Ini, the Okobo – Abam road, the Omenuko bridge, Nunya road and all other roads that have been awarded or flagged off among other projects including hospitals and schools.

Presenting the budget to the Governor earlier, the speaker, Abia State House of Assembly, Rt Hon. Emmanuel Emeruwa, described it as a very aggressive budget.

While assuring that the lawmakers would continue to work with the executive arm of the government to see that Abia State progresses, said that with the budget, Abia would continue to grow from strength to strength.

•Governor Otti