To alleviate poverty and improve the fortunes of the citizenry in 2025, the Federal Government and 35 of the 36 states of the country have proposed to spend N74.249 trillion as budget next year.

Rivers State, which is enmeshed in political crisis and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, are yet to announce their budgets.

The N74.249 trillion could be more, by the end of 2025, as the Federal Government and most of the states? proposals are yet to be passed by the legislature. There is also the likelihood of supplementary appropriations.

According to Vanguard?s summation of the various budgets, the sum of N35.676 trillion or 48.05 per cent would be spent on capital projects while recurrent expenditures were allocated N38.573 trillion (51.95 per cent).

Indeed, most of the 35 states allocated more funds to capital expenditure except Ekiti, Osun and the Federal Government (see table).

Ekiti State proposed to spend N183.464 billion of its N375.790 billion budget on capital projects and earmarked N192.327 billion for recurrent expenditure.

On its part, Osun State proposed N390.028 billion, voted N144.231 billion for capital expenditure, and N245.797billion for recurrent.

At the centre, the Federal Government unveiled a N49.74 trillion proposal made up of N30.45 recurrent expenditure and N19.29 trillion capital expenditure.

The recurrent budget consists of N16.33 trillion (debt servicing) and N14.12 trillion (non-debt recurrent). And the capital expenditure includes N14.85 trillion (projects) and N4.44trillion (statutory transfers).

Among the states, the heavy spenders are Lagos (N3.005 trillion), Niger (N1.5 trillion), Ogun (N1.0545 trillion), Delta (N979.2 billion), Enugu (N971.8 billion) and Akwa Ibom (N955 billion).

The least spenders include Gombe (N320.11billion), Yobe (320.811 billion), Ekiti (N375.79 billion) Nasarawa (N382.57billion) and Ebonyi (N396.59 billion).

Among the zones, the South-West came top with N6.202 trillion and the least is North-East with N2.610 trillion.

The others are North-West (N4.382 trillion), North-Central (N4.0265trillion), South-South (without Rivers) has N3.807 trillion, and South-East N3.481 trillion).

As the economic nerve centre of the nation, the N3.005 trillion budget of Lagos surpasses the N2.610 trillion proposed by the six states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe) of the Northeast.

The Lagos figure is about N476 billion less than the entire budgets of the five (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo) South-East states (N3.481 billion). (Vanguard)

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