For the 2024/25 budget year, the Addis Ababa City Administration has proposed a budget of about a quarter trillion birr, an increase of over 90 billion birr from the preceding year.
The majority of the 230.4 billion birr draft budget, which was presented for public consultation before being sent to the city council for approval, is allocated to capital projects that are carried out by the municipal administration led by Mayor Adanech Abiebie.
The proposed budget amount is a 42 percent increase above the first approved budget of 140.2 billion birr for the 2023/24 budget year.
Recall that the city government increased its budget to 162 billion birr for the budget year 2023/24.
Recurrent funding for the 2024/25 budget year is 83.9 billion birr, or 36.4 percent of the total proposed amount, of which 9.4 billion birr is provisional.
However, the capital budget, which accounts for 146.4 billion birr, represents 63.5 percent of the total.
Based on the information that Capital was able to gather, the municipal budget will prioritize mega projects that are managed by the city administration, with job creation, social sector development, and city reform initiatives listed in that order.
The majority of the budget, according to the proposal, would go toward funding obtained from tax collection.
According to the city Revenue Bureau, revenue collection is increasing annually, but experts claim that there has been an increase in illicit activities, namely non-receipt-based transactions, in the city.
The bureau reports that over the previous five years, the average yearly gain in tax revenue has been 23 percent. The agency estimated that it will collect 151 billion birr in the budget year that concluded on July 7.
The city administration has been granted 5.2 billion birr for the budgetary year by the central government.
The budget for the current budget year, authorized by the central government, is 970 billion birr.