The actual budgetary provision for public secondary schools in Ebonyi State, in the 2024 Appropriation Act has been subject of controversy on social media.
Alex Onyi, CEO of Educare, an education management system, alleged that Governor Nwifuru Francis’s administration budgeted N40 million for public secondary schools in the state on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
Exactly 11:40 am (West African time), on Thursday, May 16, Alex wrote on his X handle, “Ebonyi State budgeted only N40 million for the entire public secondary schools for 2024. This state can never move forward if they keep ignoring education.”
Onyia’s post attracted the attention of Leo Ekene Oketa, Special Assistant to Governor Nwifuru on New Media. Oketa described the post as false. He said “it is rather unfortunate that Alex Onyia is devoid of knowledge and has chosen to intentionally bring to bear such crass ignorance, to demean and attempt to distract the elegance set in motion by Francis Nwifuru in the education sector – unfortunately, selling this to unsuspecting members of the public.”
Oketa added that “the tenets and workings of the administration of Governor Nwifuru are clear as day. No ambiguity. He has been a lover of Education from time immemorial. The administration will never turn its head in distraction to any of such rather unfortunate statements like that of Alex. The Governor is focused on delivering on the mandate to meet the needs of Ebonyi people.”
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While the Special Assistant called on Onyia to “withdraw his malicious statement and apologize to the State immediately OR show proof of his submissions”, he failed to give the actual detailed amount allocated for the state public secondary schools in the state’s 2024 budget.
Ekene, however, said Nwifuru’s administration budgeted “Forty-Six Billion, Fifty Five Million, Six Hundred and Thirty-Four thousand Naira, zero Kobo (N46,055,634,000.00) only, amounting to 22 percent of the entire budget.”
He added that “the budget includes building of 39 model secondary schools across the 13 Local Government Areas of Ebonyi State, 3 per Local Government Area and other budgetary provisions which include activities in Tertiary Education, of course, personnel costs and overhead.
“Interestingly, the budget for each of the model schools is One Hundred and Seventy-Two Million Naira (N172,000,000). These contracts have been awarded and the contractors are being committed as we speak. It is rather laughable, that the allocation for one of the model schools is more than four times higher than the projection made by Alex Onyia for the entire sector. N172m by 39 is Six Billion, Seven Hundred and Eight Million Naira (N6,708,000,000) only.”
while all analyses by Oketa to refute the allegation by Onyia failed to give detailed amount for public secondary schools in Ebonyi, our reporter after analysis of the budget found out that a total of N5,542,000,000.00 ( Five billion, Five hundred and Forty-Two million) was approved for Ebonyi Secondary Education Board.
Of the N5.542 billion, N5,480,000,000.00 ( Five billion, Four hundred and Eighty million) was approved as personnel recurrent expenditure; 20,000,000.00 (Twenty billion) was approved as other recurrent expenditure; N5,500,000,000.00 (Five billion, Five hundred million) was total recurrent expenditure; N42,000,000.00 (Forty-Two billion) was approved as capital expenditure. Read more here
