Why N2bn reserved in our 2025 budget – Minister

Yesterday, the Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, revealed reason for reserving N2 billion in the ministry’s 2025 budget.

The Minister said the N2 billion from the ministry’s 2025 budget is meant for constituency projects and has been allocated to Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, the Leader of the House of Representatives.

This was disclosed during the ministry’s budget presentation before the joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Regional Development at the National Assembly.

The ministry’s total budget proposal for 2025 is N28.9 billion. Broken down, N24 billion is for capital projects, N2.7 billion for personnel costs and N1.6 billion for recurrent expenses.

Of this, N2 billion is for zonal intervention projects tied to Prof. Ihonvbere, who represents Edo State.

Despite this, the minister was not satisfied with the overall funding for the ministry.

He described the budget as not enough to meet the development needs of the five regional development commissions under the ministry’s watch.

Momoh listed the challenges the ministry is facing due to inadequate funding as:

Unfinished and abandoned projects.

Delay in completing ongoing projects.

General underperformance in project delivery.

He appealed to the joint committee to increase the ministry’s budget to address regional development challenges. He said addressing the specific needs of each region would require more resources than what is currently allocated.