Business
By Paul Nwosu
ANAMBRA State Governor, Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, in the spirit of the mantra “One State, One People, One Agenda” has presented a budget of N410,132,225,272 to the State House of Assembly. The budget is entitled “Changing Gear” and it marks the beginning of the Transformation Agenda that Mr. Governor promised Ndi-Anambra, that is, to “leave this state far better than we met it.”
Soludo had on November 10, 2022, presented the 2023 budget captioned “Budget of Acceleration”. Benefits of that initial budget have been coming to the state such that today Anambra is ranked as number one among the 17 southern states on Ease of Doing Business, and as the number two state with lowest infant mortality rate. The best performing students in JAMB and NECO are from Anambra, while BudgIT has ranked the state among the top 5 states on fiscal sustainability. The state’s security is getting stronger by the day, with the eight local governments previously under the total control of the so-called Unknown Gunmen being largely liberated, thus making Anambra one of the safest states in Nigeria today.
Well over 400 kilometres of roads plus two flyovers are under construction in all the 21 LGAs. Anambra is poised to break the 32-year-old jinx of not having a proper and befitting Government House and Governor’s Lodge at Awka. Africa’s biggest open drug market is under construction at the Oba Open Drug Market. The Pharmaceutical Industrial Park, Ogboji is equally under development with 15 manufacturers out of the expected 100 already signed up. The regenerative agricultural revolution is on with the distribution of 1,100,000 hybrid coconut and palm seedlings to over 100,000 households in the drive towards zero poverty, neo-agro-industrialization, and a green and environmentally sustainable state. Some 25,000 diesel-powered streetlights have been converted into solar light, thus saving cost and powering the night economy.
As human capital is Anambra’s greatest asset, the plan is building a resource that is productive at home and exportable abroad. This way, basic education is now free. The phenomenon of schools without teachers has been addressed by recruiting 5,000 teachers and there is the ongoing recruitment of an additional 3,000 teachers. Anambra schools, teachers and students won several national and international prizes in the year.
The era of hospitals without doctors and nurses has been banished by recruiting almost 1,000 health workers, notably, doctors, consultants, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, etc. to power the General Hospitals and primary health centres. Four new General Hospitals are under construction and several others are under reconstruction. Pregnant women now have free antennal and delivery services in Anambra State.
Youth empowerment is on the front burner through pioneering the One Youth, Two Skills programme that has graduated its first batch of 5,000 youths who have been empowered with N2 billion as seed capital to start their own businesses.
The All-Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) truly holds aloft the motto: “Be your brother’s and sister’s keeper”. The government increased the salary of public servants by 10% effective from January 2023, and also granted all public servants and pensioners, numbering about 59,000 persons, a non-taxable cash award of N12,000 per month spanning September to December 2023.
Having addressed the past issues, Governor Soludo announced that Anambra State is Changing Gear into his promised Transformation Agenda of revolutionizing the State’s status to a liveable and prosperous smart megacity, to wit, from a “departure lounge” to a “destination of choice”
The Anambra State budget for the fiscal year 2024 stands at N410,132,225,272. This amounts to a 57.8% increase when compared to the N258,984,875,905 budget for 2023. 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. When juxtaposed with 2023, some key sectors have gained significant increases, notably: 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.
A major highlight is that three new cities are part of the new Masterplan for Anambra: Awka 2.0; Onitsha 2.0; and a new Industrial City (with Export Emporium and potentials for a possible future airport).
In the words of Governor Soludo, “An industrial masterplan is being finalized while the railway masterplan/feasibility study is also being completed. The US$200 million project development, advisory and financing agreement signed recently with Afreximbank is part of this new agenda. We will continue to address the Ease of Doing Business. With the completion of the Fun City, the myriad of infrastructural development as well as the coming of a branded international hotel in Awka, both Awka 1.0 and Awka 2.0 will merge to give Anambra a befitting capital city. Urban regeneration will be aggressively pursued. The environment remains our existential threat, and under the 2024 budget, we will intentionally accelerate our agenda on Clean, Green, Planned and Sustainable Anambra. Smart, Green cities is our goal. Our infrastructural development will deliberately target the provision of transportation system that will serve the next generations by targeting the dualization of key highways and modernizing our mass transport systems. A new electricity market will be created, and our security operations will be upgraded with high technology applications even with barely 4% of the budget for security. The 2024 budget signals a significant investment in urban and semi-urban water schemes, and we expect Ndi-Anambra to see taps running again in 2024.”
Some 100,000 households or more will receive 10 or more seedlings of coconut, palm, ukwa, pawpaw, soursop, etc. per household. The mainstreaming of the sports economy is on, and the state football team will debut in 2024.
Even as the 7th Assembly approved in 2022 for the government to borrow N100 billion for infrastructure, up until now no kobo has been borrowed. The Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) remains a fundamental challenge as the targeted monthly revenue of N4 billion in the 2023 budget is only averaging N2 billion, but the projection is N4.2 billion per month in 2024. The reality is that if each one of Ndi-Anambra pays just 5-10% of our annual income as tax to the state, the Anambra of our dream will be fast-tracked. In the spirit of “Doing more with less”, it used to cost about N137 million to clean public offices per month, but it currently costs N11 million to do the same job, with a monthly savings of N126 million per month.
In truth, Solution is Here!
***Paul Nwosu is the commissioner for Information, Anambra State .
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November 23, 2023 @ 6:22 GMT|
Tags: Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo
