**Holds consultative meeting on 2025 Budget
Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, will present the Agenda 2040 for Oyo State on Wednesday.
The governor will present the Agenda at the 6th Consultative Engagement Meeting to kick-start the preparation of the 2025 Budget of the state, scheduled to hold at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan.
The Oyo State Government will, in line with its tradition of engaging residents of Oyo State to seek their inputs in the preparation of the state’s annual budgets, begin the consultative meeting, which will be followed by similar meeting across the seven zones of the state.
Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Prof. Musbau Babatunde, stated this on Monday, noting that the meeting, which is the sixth in the series of the Town Hall meetings organised by the state since the inception of Governor Makinde’s administration in 2019, was “designed to engage the citizenry in the preparation and implementation of the state’s Annual Budget for the year 2025.”
He added that “this year’s engagement is set to redefine the governance initiative of this administration. This programme is designed to align the state with the world best practices in the preparation of annual budgets, which support an all-inclusive and open approach to governance, rather than the top to bottom approach.”
In a related development, Governor Makinde will unveil the state’s Agenda 2040 and the Medium Term Development Plan 2023 to 202, two documents, which articulate the state’s vision, projecting the state beyond 2027 and premised on the need to create expanded opportunities for all.
Recall that the governor had, in November 2020, inaugurated a Steering Committee on the Oyo State Agenda 2040, taking a cue from the Federal Government’s preparation of Agenda 2050, which seeks a holistic transformation of the country’s economy, as obtained in countries like China, South Korea, India and Malaysia.
Prof. Babatunde said the governor expressed his desire to produce the maiden 20-Year Development Plan ‘Tagged Agenda 2040’ for Oyo State and the Five Years Medium Term Development Plan to address the socio-economic drift and refocusing the state on the path of progress.
He noted that the Medium Term Development Plan 2023 to 2027 is the implementation plan for the Agenda 2040, stating that the medium term development plan provided the forward-looking intention of the government and good people of Oyo state and also set goals, objectives and strategy for achieving them.
Babatunde said: “The development of these documents was driven by the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, supported by DFID/PERL, DAWN Commission, UNICEF and University of Ibadan Ventures Limited (consultancy service unit) through Professor Olusanya Ajakaiye.
“The objectives of Agenda 2040, which is anchored on the four pillars of Education, Health, Security and Economy, include to make Oyo State the most secured state in Nigeria for conducive economic and social development; raise educational standards to the top through the provision of qualitative basic, secondary, non-formal and tertiary education; provide and sustain the availability, accessibility and affordability of required healthcare services to the citizens, particularly the needy.
“Other objectives are to improve farmers’ productivity and value addition by strengthening production in areas of comparative advantage for commercial agriculture; accelerate infrastructure provision in key areas and adopt Public Private Partnership arrangements; improve Internally Generated Revenue through development of new sources and improvement of existing ones through innovative and purposeful modes of revenue collection and utilisation.
He continued; “another objective is also to make Oyo State the hub of economic activities and investors’ preferred destination in Nigeria; and employment and job creation through provision of productive and sustainable livelihood for youths in Oyo State.
“The expected result of the Agenda 2040 is that it is expected to translate economic growth into equitable socio-economic development that guarantees a dignified and meaningful existence for all; optimise the state’s human and natural resources potentials to achieve accelerated development from poverty to prosperity and create an enabling environment for private investments (domestic and foreign) to thrive through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP).
“It is also expected to increase sustainable production, productivity and value addition in key growth opportunities; increase the stock and quality of strategic infrastructure to hasten competitiveness and development; enhance Human Capital Development, and strengthen mechanisms for quality, effective and efficient service delivery.”
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