Abia Spent N5.32bn On Governor’s Office To Reduce Cost Of Governance, Says Economic Transformation Council

The Economic Transformation Council set up by Abia State Governor Alex Otti has explained why the state spent N5.32 billion on the governor’s office in the third quarter of 2023.

Responding to critics who accused the state of lavish spending, Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe, co-chair of the Economic Transformation Council, said the government created a unit in the governor’s office to coordinate strategies and project executions, which has eliminated the need for more than 15 ministries.

This, the council said, has made the government’s processes more integrated and optimized, and has ultimately led to a reduction in the cost of governance.

The council also pointed out that Ebonyi State, which spends N805 million on its governor’s office, has a larger bureaucracy and consumes billions from the state purse to maintain its 35 ministries.

In contrast, Abia State has only 20 ministries, and its cumulative recurrent expenditure is lower than Ebonyi’s.

The Abia government’s budget performance report for 2023 Q3 shows that out of N15.34bn budgeted for the office of the governor, N5.32bn was spent in Q3 while a total of N7.41bn was spent from January 2023 to September 2023.

The office of the deputy governor only spent N252.42m in Q3 and a total of N412m between Q1 and Q3 out of the N924.2m budgeted for the office for the full year of 2023.

The budget report seen by THE WHISTLER shows that the government posted an improvement in its revenue performance as it achieved N69.64bn revenue out of the N104.79bn revenue projected which represents 66.5 percent revenue performance.

The total actual expenditure from January to September 2023 was N38.98bn which is 24.3 percent of the total expenditure budget of N160.5bn.

Ekekwe’s explanation for Otti’s decision reads: “Ebonyi State uses 35 commissioners and ministries. In Abia State, we suggested to the governor to stay below 20 commissioners/ministries. But to run things, the state created a Unit within the Governor’s Office to drive the coordination of strategies, project coordination, project executions, etc, making the government processes more integrated and optimised.

“That Unit works to ensure things are done. Also, it essentially eliminated more than 15 ministries in Ebonyi State if we have to compare. Of course, because of that Unit, the expense in the Governor’s Office seems higher but when you check what it eliminated, Abia State has a better cost efficiency. Looking at the data, Ebonyi State has a larger cumulative recurrent expenditure when compared with Abia State.”