The House of Representatives Committee on South East Development Commission (SEDC) has approved the N140 billion proposed budget of the Commission.

The proposed budget was approved after its presentation by the Managing Director Mark Okoye at the budget defence session by the committee yesterday.

He said: “We’ve also seen the 2026 call circular as published by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Planning, which said to all of us, take your entire capital expenditure of last year and bring it to this year because of one or two issues. “Of course, we are very well aware of what’s going on.

There were a lot of debts, and what have you, that the government inherited. “So last year was about assuring investor confidence, addressing, servicing the debt, such that now, this year, we believe and we are confident that we’ve made those provisions, we’ve moved our budget from last year and we’ve brought it into the current year.

So that has influenced what we have in front of us.” Okoye said the SEDC has a comprehensive ambitious development plans for the South East which included construction of railways across the five states of the South East to enhance trade and investment to make the region a unified economic block through shared visions of all stakeholders.