Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra on Tuesday presented a budget of N606.99 billion, christened “Changing Gears 2.0” to the Anambra House of Assembly.

The budget is N196,85 billion, representing a 48 per cent increase over the budget for 2024.

Mr Soludo presented the budget at the Anambra House of Assembly. He said the budget had an expenditure estimate of N139.5 billion and a capital outlay of N467.5 billion, representing 23 per cent and 77 per cent, respectively, of the entire budget cost.

The 2025 outlay for recurrent and capital had increases of 45 per cent and 48.9 per cent, respectively, over those of 2024.

Mr Soludo said the budget had a deficit of N148.3 billion, which would be raised from revenue growth or borrowing from financial institutions.

“So far, in both 2023 and 2024, we did not borrow to finance budget deficits, depending on the execution in 2025, we may still not borrow to fund the deficit,” he said.

Mr Soludo said that during the outgoing year, his administration had delivered on its agenda of security, law, order, infrastructure, economic transformation, human capital, social agenda, governance, value system and environment.

He said over 540 kilometres of roads were under construction, with about 310 kilometres already asphalted in the last 30 months,

“Our vision to turn Anambra into a destination rather than a departure lounge is fully on course.

“From the foregoing, it is evident that there is no stopping our consistent acceleration in a steadfast execution mode,” he said.

(NAN)