COSMAS CHUKWU , Enugu
The Enugu State Government has expressed dismay over a report in the December 19, 2024 edition of the Punch Newspaper stating that the government earmarked N55bn for the construction, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of urban and rural roads in the state’s 2025 budget proposal by Governor Peter Mbah, while allocating N50.27bn to the Office of the Governor.
The government in a statement signed by the senior special assistant to the governor on mainstream media, Dan Nwomeh, described the report authored by Punch’s reporter, Raphael Ede, as misleading and borne out of deliberate mischief, pointing out that the actual provision for urban and rural roads in the state’s 2025 budget estimates presented to the House of Assembly on November 26, 2024 is the sum of N213,129,267,000 (Two hundred and thirteen billion, one hundred and twenty million, two hundred and sixty-seven thousand naira), not N55,000,000,000 (fifty-five billion naira) as misrepresented.
“It beggars belief that a reporter who supposedly witnessed the budget presentation by the governor at the House of Assembly chamber and thereafter filed the report published in the paper’s edition of November 26, 2024 (https://punchng.com/enugu-gov-presents-n971bn-2025-budget-to-assembly/) would concoct this N55bn figure from nowhere.
“In his budget speech, the governor clearly stated inter alia: ‘The total Capital Expenditure for the year 2025 is projected at N837,944,000,000.00…. In the area of Works and Infrastructure, we will continue our relentless advance towards our target to build or refurbish all key roads across the state by 2031. In line with this, we will spend a total of N213,120,267,000.00 in 2025,”” the government statement read.
According to the government, the 2025 budget breakdown was presented by the State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Barr. Chris-Roberts Ozongwu, at a press conference on December 19, 2024, was consistent with the one earlier presented by the governor, wondering why the reporter failed to seek clarification from the Commissioner or crosscheck from previous reports authored by him if he was confused.
“It should be noted that this same reporter had authored a report published in the August 4, 2024 edition of Punch titled ‘Enugu approves N183bn for road projects’ (https://punchng.com/enugu-approves-n183bn-for-road-projects/) in which he reported that “the Enugu State government has approved the sum of N183bn for the construction of 141 roads across the Enugu metropolis and 20 rural roads across the three senatorial zones of the state.” How did the N183bn announced by the state in one fell swoop in August 2024 and the N213bn contained in the governor’s budget of November 2024 for the same purpose suddenly plummet to N55 billion in December 2024?”, the government queried.
It further clarified that the allocations of N50.27bn for the Office of the Governor, N665.71bn for the Office of the Deputy Governor’, and N3.42bn for the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, as highlighted in the Punch report, were not for the personal uses and comforts of the governor, the deputy governor, and the secretary to the state government as wrongly implied in the report, saying they were for recurrent and capital needs of the numerous departments and agencies under those offices.
“The allocation for the governor’s office is for recurrent and capital purposes, including provisions for state security, operational vehicles for the ministries, departments and agencies, the Project Development and Implementation Unit, which undertakes special intervention projects, and others. Several government departments and agencies are typically domiciled in the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, and this is also true of the Office of the Deputy Governor.
“It is a known fact that the Enugu State Government under the leadership of Dr. Peter Mbah has consistently remained prudent and by far the lowest in the ranking of states by empirical analysis in terms of cost of governance.
“We, therefore, urge members of the media to always verify their reports before rushing to publish them. The budget speech of the governor is a public record, which is available on the state government website, www.enugustate.gov.ng and the governor’s website, www.petermbah.net. A media professional can always get his or her facts correctly”, the statement concluded.
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