The acting governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, on Thursday, presented the N384.5 appropriation bill for the 2024 fiscal year to the State’s House of Assembly.

The bill, christened “Budget of Economic Resilience”, was presented barely a week after Mr Aiyedatiwa took over the reign of government in an acting capacity as a result of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s ill health.

Peoples Gazette reports that the breakdown of the budget showed that infrastructure development, public finance, education, health, agriculture development and general administration received the largest chunks of allocation in the proposed bill.

Presenting the 2024 budget before the lawmakers, the acting governor said the appropriation bill was made up of recurrent expenditure of N172.5 billion and capital expenditure of N212.1 billion.

He explained that the budget proposal would take care of overhead costs at N42 billion, Grants and contributions at N14 billion, while the state debt servicing would gulp over N16 billion.

The acting governor specifically noted that the 2024 budget proposal was prepared on the projection of the 2024-2026 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) as required by the State Fiscal Responsibility Law of 2017.

“The current national and global economic realities point to reason why we must consciously and programmatically re-arrange our fiscal priorities to target the growth drivers of our economy so as to quickly fix and reflate the economy, to keep it afloat.

“We are aware of the negative impacts of fuel subsidy removal and floating exchange rate on the people. All these are put into consideration while projecting for expenditure in this Budget,” Mr Aiyedatiwa added.

While noting that it’s now a thing of the past when the executive would sit in an office and come up with a budget document without inputs from those the appropriation bill was meant to serve, Mr Aiyedatiwa disclosed that the input of all stakeholders, which include the youths in the 18 LGAs of the state was sourced before its presentation to the assembly.

“The objectives of the 2024 budget are as follows: to invest in human capital development with renewed vigour; rejig Independent Revenue collection for the attainment of financial resilience and sustainability; optimise resource inflow and expand fiscal space locally and globally.

“To also expand the scope and reach of social safety nets and economic support programmes to the deserving citizens of the State; develop agricultural value chain and promote the expansion of agricultural productivity to enhance food security; stimulate the rural economy; ensure effective transportation system for economic growth and development,” Mr Aiyedatiwa added.

Remarking, the Assembly Speaker, Olamide Oladiji, pledged the commitment of the house to give the 2024 budget a swift approval while commending the executive for the presentation of the appropriation bill.

Mr Oladiji also assured residents of the state that their interest would be of paramount consideration in the course of the budget passage.