The Delta government says it is projecting N936 billion as a budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year.

The Commissioner for Economic Planning, Sunny Ekedayen, said this on Tuesday in Asaba at the opening ceremony of the inter-ministerial budget meeting for the 2025 fiscal year.

He said, ”We have a budget envelope of N936 billion, and that should ordinarily service the entire population of the state, and we are going to do the best in our abilities through the instrument of the MDAs.”

“As a state, we know that projection can be very difficult. And you can hardly project for a month, not to even talk of projecting for one year.

”To save ourselves from embarrassment, we are projecting the 2025 budget on actual receipts from June to date.”

Mr Ekedayen said the projected N936 billion would be a 30 per cent increase from the 2024 budget of N735 billion.

”Whatever is coming as a way of revenue, and we think it can be sustained, that is what we are using to calculate our budget; as such, we were able to come up with a budget envelope of N936 billion,” said the commissioner.

Mr Ekedayen, however, said that though the money might be huge, the value of money had depreciated due to the current economic reality.

”What this amount of money can do now is probably less than what it could have done in the previous years, ” he said.

Mr Ekedayen called on heads of MDAs to handle the budgeting process seriously and judiciously.

(NAN)