2013: States in N4.5 trn budget bazaar

As witnessed in previous years the 36 states of the federation are still performing the annual ritual of budget proposal.

And by the end of the year, they would have spent the sum of N4.5 trillion or more since Osun State is yet to announce its budget and most of the states will have supplementary appropriations. As has been observed, most of states have announced higher figures than last year.

States that announced lower figures than what they spent last year are Ondo, Oyo, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Taraba, Benue, Niger and the Federal capital Territory.

Most of the states will depend on statutory allocation and loans to fund their budget as most of them generate less than N500 million monthly from internal sources. States that hope to go above the N500million monthly or N6 billion yearly IGR mark include Rivers (N80 billion), Delta (N61.44 billion), Lagos (N19.912 billion), Sokoto (15.579 billion), Ekiti (N14.3 billion), Anambra (N12.5 billion), Ondo (N12 billion), Benue (N11 billion) and Jigawa (N7.507 billion).

While presenting the budgets, governors as usual deployed fanciful tags, which over the years have had little or no impact on effective implementation of the appropriations. Fanciful themes used in 2013 budgets include “Budget of Integrated Development,” “Budget for sustainable growth,” “Budget of Sustained Prosperity, “Budget of Consolidating the Focused Socio-Economic Transformation Programme,” “A Caring Heart Budget 4,” “Budget  of Empowerment and Consolidation,” “Budget of Redemption,” “Budget of sustainable development,” “Budget of Commitment”, “Budget of Partnership,” “Budget of Sustainability,” “Budget of determination,” and “Budget of Consolidation and Advancement” among others.

The next 10 months would tell whether the budgets would live up to their names in terms of improving the lot of Nigerian citizenry.

How states and geo-political zones fared since 2005 

SOUTH-EAST
Abia State        N666.490 bn
Anambra        N603.420 bn
Ebonyi        N552.608 bn
Enugu        N531.107 bn
TOTAL        N3.345 tn

SOUTH-SOUTH
Akwa Ibom    N2.650 tn
Bayelsa        N1.708 tn
Cross River    N838.937 bn
Delta State    N2.377
Edo State        N848.675
Rivers State    N3.079
TOTAL    N11.503 tn

SOUTH-WEST
Lagos         N3.282 tn
Ekiti        N588.340 bn
Ogun        N932.380 bn
Ondo        N876.375 bn
Osun        N576.298 bn *
Oyo        1.045 tn
TOTAL        N7.30 tn
* = Osun is yet to publish its 2013 budget estimates

NORTH-EAST
Yobe        N531.800 bn
Borno        N827.070 bn
Taraba        N459.864 bn
Adamawa        N526.865 bn
Bauchi        N864.124
Gombe        N560.428    TOTAL        N3.752 tn

NORTH –CENTRAL
FCT, Abuja    N1.336 tn
Kogi State        N658.250 bn
Kwara        N575.370 bn
Benue State    N715.852 bn
Plateau        N658.746 bn
Nasarawa        N584.936 bn
Niger State    N668.160 bn       TOTAL        N5.197 tn

NORTH-WEST
Kano State        N1.057 tn
Katsina        N684.14 bn
Sokoto        N600.91 bn
Zamfara        N662.090 bn
Kaduna        N1.096 tn
Jigawa        N661.138bn
Kebbi State    N624.960 bn
TOTAL        N5.386 tn