Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo has signed the 2022 appropriation bill of N222.6 billion into law.

Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo has signed the 2022 appropriation bill of N222.6 billion into law.

The budget, dubbed ‘Budget of Renewal, Hope, and Growth,’ represents an increase of N8.4 billion over the N214. 2 billion presented to the state assembly previously.

The governor, who signed the budget at the Exco Chambers in Government House, Benin on Wednesday, praised the state assembly leadership for expediting the bill’s consideration.

He expressed gratitude for the House’s cooperation and noted that the size of the appropriation bill presented to lawmakers when it was passed had increased marginally.

“Knowing that next year is likely to be an inflationary year, with the trend we see today, we see the naira weakening further, which means we need enough naira to accomplish the same set of things we did last year.

“So, we understand the wisdom in you now increasing the bill that we brought to you.

“We also want to thank you that even as you made that adjustment, most of that adjustment went into capital expenditure rather recurrent expenditure, which now puts our capital expenditure at an all time high relative to recurrent expenditure.

“We really want to thank you for aligning with our dream of Making Edo Great Again (MEGA).

“Except we spend more money on capital expenditure, we cannot take our people out poverty,’’ he said.

Obaseki praised the house for allocating more funds to youth development, technical education, and the construction of more technical schools, especially in Edo North, as well as a small increase in sports development.

“We want to reassure you that, as an executive branch, we are perfectly capable of turning the government’s Internally Generated Revenue, which is the key to achieving this budget size.”

“We are fairly confident that the people of Edo want to pay tax, and we want to make certain that the taxes they pay go into government coffers for developmental purposes,” he said.

Mr Marcus Onobun, the Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, had earlier stated that they were working to expedite the bill’s passage.

According to him, lawmakers increased the budget size slightly from the initial amount to the amount that was passed into law.