The Anambra State governor, Prof. Charles Soludo has appealed to residents and indigenes of Anambra State wherever they live to pay their income tax to the state to accelerate development.
The Governor made the appeal while presenting the 2024 Draft Budget to the Anambra State House of Assembly.
Prof. Soludo who noted that the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the State remains a fundamental challenge, said that in the 2023 budget, the State expected a monthly revenue of N4 billion.
“So far, we are averaging N2 billion, and we are still projecting N4.2 billion per month in 2024, he said. “This is a wake-up call to all residents of Anambra, and all Ndi Anambra wherever they may live.
“We can’t build the envisioned livable and prosperous homeland with our saliva. With the abundant resources that God has blessed Ndi Anambra with, there is literally nothing that we collectively set our minds to that we cannot achieve for our homeland. We have the Plan and the organization to execute.
“But we need resources. If each of us pays just 5-10% of our annual income as tax to the State, the Anambra of our dream will be fast-tracked.”
The breakdown of the budget is as follows: “We present a modest budget of N410,132,225,272 for fiscal year, 2024, compared to N258,984,875,905 for 2023 (about 57.8% increase). Recurrent expenditure accounts for N96.2 billion (23.46%) while capital expenditure is N313.9 billion (76.54%). Budget deficit is estimated at N120.8 billion. Relative to 2023, some key sectors have significant increases: Administrative sector (50.85%); Economic sector (103.43%); Judiciary Sector (72.9%); Social Sector (60.24%); Education (140.88%); Health (169.55%); Infrastructure investment (119.84%); overhead costs (34.1%); etc.
