Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has presented a budget of N159.213 billion for the 2014 fiscal year, to the State House of Assembly.

The proposal which is tagged “Budget of Renewed Hope” is aimed at opening up the state’s economy for rapid socio-economic development, the governor said.

The 2014 budget which is approximately N5 billion higher than the N154 billion of 2013 budget, comprises of N85,595 billion or 53.76% capital expenditure and N73.617billion or 46.24% recurrent expenditure.

Oshiomhole explained while presenting the budget that his government hopes to get N115.589 billion as revenue – N65.331 billion as statutory receipts; N25.095 billion from Internally Generated Revenue, N4.899 billion from Aids and Grants; N8.246 billion from VAT, N6.423 from Excess Crude Account and N5.595 billion from Capital Receipts.

Further breakdown revealed that road projects will gulp the largest share of the budget with  N24 billion of the Capital expenditure; followed by education which takes N15 billion; flood and erosion control/environmental protection N10.295 billion; Health N8 billion; while Agriculture, Housing and Urban Planning take N1.5billion each.

The governor said that the aim of the budget is to complete on-going infrastructural projects; provide qualitative and affordable education, improve health-care delivery services and create an investment friendly environment for a private sector driven economy.

He stressed that the state government would complete the construction and equipping of the new accident and emergency 200 bed ward complex at the Central Hospital, Benin City, as well as complete and furnish the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Block D of the new Secretariat complex to provide permanent accommodation for the Ministry.

“The outlook for our dear State in 2014 is very promising, despite the drop in inflows from the Federation Account and Internally Generated Revenue we have witnessed in 2013. We have a sound development strategy and we have drawn important lessons in the process of implementation of our projects and programmes over the years. We also have in abundance the political will, and critical mass of support to drive our development agenda, sustain the gains we have so far made and break new grounds,” Oshiomhole said.

Reviewing the state’s 2013 budget, he said the revenue performance was affected by the reduction in the Personal Income Tax, PIT, which led to a big drop in its Internally Generated Revenue to the tune of N500 million monthly.

The governor noted that the drop in the allocation from the Federation Account arising from the alleged oil theft also adversely affected the revenue profile of the State.