From Ameachi Prosper(The New Diplomat’s Delta & Edo States Correspondent)
The Cross River State House of Assembly (CRHA), on Thursday in Calabar, the Cross River state capital passed a budget of N281,940,880,230 as 2021 appropriation bill into law.
In a 2021 Budget, 25,129,910,608 was provided as Statutory Expenditure, while 204,144,154,406 was designated as Capital whereas Personnel and Over Head Cost stood at 52,666,815,216.
Going by what was presented, the Budget size shows an increment of 4,232,1144.68 from the 277,708,765,550 earlier proposed by the State Governor who had tagged it the Budget of “Blush and Bliss”.
The House of Assembly passed the Budget after the presentation of the report of the Finance and Appropriation Committee by its Chairman, Hon. Sunday Achunekang (Obanlikwu) during Plenary.
Achunekang, recalled that the State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade had presented the 2021 Budget Estimate and Appropriation Bill to the Assembly in November 5, 2020.
He added that the Bill was read a second time on Tuesday 24th November 2020 before it was referred to the Finance and Appropriation Committee for detailed consideration.
The Chairman further revealed that the Committee scrutinized the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and also received testimonies from Members of the State Economic Team after which MDAs were invited to defend their respective budget estimates proposed against their various revenue and expenditure heads.
Achunekang also noted that the 2021 budget is projected to focus more on humanitarian perspectives including, hunger, poverty, unemployment, security and Crime prevention, adding that there is need to create an alternative economy with less dependence on oil revenue and Federal Allocation.
He said: “The Governor observed that the 2021 Budget is shifting from infrastructure, from major projects, from super Highway, from Deep Seaport from Bridges and creates opportunity to focus on the essence of existence which is hunger and poverty. It is also tailored to address unemployment and security”.
Speaking on the budget, the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Eteng Jonah Williams expressed happiness at the early passage of the Appropriation Bill and commended Members of the House for their commitment and hard work.
The Speaker also stated that the Assembly had made provisions for some grey areas like palliatives and several humanitarian services adding that a proposed State Polytechnic had not been considered previously hence the difference between what the Governor presented and the actual figure passed by the Assembly.
Williams also stated that since the Budget is Christianed “Blush and Bliss”, there was need to do more humanitarian services to ameliorate the sufferings of Cross Riverians occasioned by COVID-19 and the #Endsars protest.
The Speaker promised that the House will increase its oversight functions to facilitate effective monitoring and evaluation at the implementation stage of the Budget while promising that the House will work towards achieving at least 70%implimentation of the Budget.
