The Rivers State Executive Council has approved the framework for the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning to begin preparations for the state’s 2025 budget.
The approval was granted during the State Executive Council meeting, chaired by Governor Siminalayi Fubara, with Deputy Governor Ngozi Odu and other council members in attendance at the Executive Council Chambers, Government House, Port Harcourt, on Thursday.
This decision follows the ministry’s submission of the updated 2025-2027 Rivers State Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, for review.
According to a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Nelson Chukwudi, the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Dr. Peter Medee, confirmed the approval while addressing journalists after the meeting.
Dr. Medee explained that the MTEF, which outlines the government’s fiscal and economic outlook for the upcoming year, ensures that the budget aligns with realistic economic projections, preventing overbudgeting or underbudgeting.
Medee said: “Council, today, graciously approved our request for the submission of the updated copy of the 2025-2027 Rivers State Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
“The MTEF is a document that explains the fiscal and economic outlook of government for the year under consideration. It takes six years behind and three years ahead. The essence is to project and put some forecast based on which the budget for the following year will be prepared.
“So, today, Council has approved the framework for us to go ahead to prepare the 2025 budget of Rivers State. The essence is that the Medium Term Expenditure Framework takes into consideration the global outlook, the continental outlook, the national outlook, and the state’s specific outlook.”
The commissioner stated that the budget takes into account “the shock arising from the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine and Russia, as well as other internal shocks, just like oil price as well as other daily averages that will be able to affect the economy.”
He added: “So, Council, in their wisdom today, has looked at all that, so that we will be able to prepare a budget that Rivers State can be moved from where we are today, where the Governor and the government of Rivers State will be able to provide value for the money because budget is all about expected income and intended expenditure.
“The income we are expecting, we have been able to look at the outlay of the sources where this income will come, and we have also been able to look at what the needs are, such that the expected expenditure will be situated on the need basis and all that is what this document looked at.
“We have also projected the income that we are expecting from the local governments as well as other sectors. All these are packaged in the envelope, such that by the time we do sectoral distribution of this income, which is going to be the actual budget, then, we will be able to put the state on the path of growth and development.”
Medee noted that the 2025 budget, which will be bigger than that of 2024, will enable the governor and the government to deliver more democratic dividends to meet the needs of Rivers people.
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