Edo’s 2025 Budget: Gov. Okpebholo Trips Over Big Spending Numbers

Earlier today, Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo presented Edo’s 2025 budget worth an estimated N605 billion before the state House of Assembly.

The presentation took a dramatic turn as the Governor struggled to pronounce the budget figures correctly. Despite this initial blunder, he eventually got it right.

The video of the moment has since gone viral, eliciting reactions among Nigerians but beyond the pronunciation blunder, what does Edo state’s 2025 budget contain?

Edo State 2025 Budget

It is instructive to note that the N605 billion budget tagged “Budget of Renewed Hope for a Rising Edo,” is over N200 billion above the state’s 2024 budget.

According to the Governor, 37 percent of the total budget, amounting to N223 billion, would be allocated to recurrent expenditure while the remaining N381 billion (63 percent) would go toward capital projects. Of this figure, N162 billion would be directed towards shoring up the state’s road infrastructure.

The budget also allocates N48 Billion for Education, N63.9  202 billion for Health, N1.8 Billion for Health Insurance schemes, and N4.5 Billion for the Agricultural sub-sector.

Speaking on the Budget, Governor Monday Okpebholo said “This budget is a product of extensive consultations and embodies my administration’s commitment to achieving its five-point agenda: security, infrastructural development, healthcare, food sufficiency, and education,”

How Would The Budget be Financed?

It is still unclear how the government intends to finance the 2025 budget but if precedents are taken into consideration, it would likely be through FAAC allocations, IGR, and loans.

Edo State 2024 Revenue

According to the state’s unaudited report, Edo state received N155.5 billion as FAAC revenue in the first half of 2024, the state is also expected to receive a figure within the same region for the second half of 2024.

The state also received N16.9 billion as independent revenue, otherwise called IGR in H1 2024 while the state borrowed N21 billion to fund its 2024 budget deficit.

How Feasible is The 2025 Revenue Assumptions?

While the 2025 budget is laudable and ambitious on paper, the revenue assumptions used in calculating the budget might be overreaching.

While Edo’s steady increase in IGR revenue in recent times is set to continue in 2025, there is no assurance the state would get as much as it currently gets from FAAC allocations if the tax reforms bill is passed as the reforms bill favours states who generate the most income.

While Edo is an oil-producing state, it does not produce as much oil as other states in the south-south as such, it might struggle to generate as much income as these other states.

These hinderances might force the Edo state government to turn to borrowing in a bid to finance the deficit or in the worst case lead to an underperformance of the budget.

 

 

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