On Wednesday, Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki signed the state’s revised 2024 supplementary budget of N404 billion into law.
According to News About Nigeria, the revised budget represents a 22 percent increase from the previously approved N325.3 billion by the Edo State House of Assembly.
During the signing ceremony at the Government House in Benin City, Governor Obaseki explained that the revision was necessitated by current economic realities in the nation. He acknowledged that the original N325.3 billion budget, approved late last year, did not account for economic fluctuations and the recent increase in the minimum wage for workers.
He further noted that did not consider/envision the economic fluctuations and even the increase in workers minimum wage when the earlier N325.3 billion 2024 budget was approved late last year.
Obaseki said “I have signed into law the revised supplementary budget for Edo State. We have to amend the 2024 Appropriation Act which was passed late last year because of developments that have occurred in the economy in the first five months of the year. We have to increase our budget by about 22 percent, to about N404 billion from the earlier projected figures. The reason we had to do this is because from the first quarter of this year, we saw a 100 percent budget performance for that period.
“Also, because of the inflationary trend in the economy, we have had to adjust our capital budget to reflect the new trend we are seeing. We also had to make a decision on the minimum wage which has financial implications. We didn’t anticipate that in the earlier appropriation law which we have had to amend.”
