Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State on Wednesday presented the State’s 2016 budget of (N85,179,449,000) eighty five billion ,one hundred and seventy nine million, four hundred and forty nine thousand naira before the State House of Assembly.
Ugwuanyi, who was accompanied to the House by his Deputy, Mrs. Cecilia Ezeilo, as well as other top government functionaries, said the 2016 appropriation “is lower than the 2015 budget of (N96,735,300,000) ninety six billion, seven hundred and thirty five million, three hundred thousand naira by (N11,555,851,000) eleven billion, five hundred and fifty five million, eight hundred and fifty one thousand naira, which represents a decrease of 12%.”
He stated that the decrease was necessitated by the realities of the times with respect to revenue inflow from Federal Allocation.
The Governor disclosed that it was tagged: “Budget of Stability and Consolidation”, “because it is intended to help us find our way through the current economic difficulties that the nation is passing through while ensuring the seamless continuity and consolidation of the progressive policies and programmes of government that we promised our people.
“It is also among others, intended to enable us create jobs through agriculture, entrepreneurship and investment; increase the tempo of infrastructural development across the state; sustain the comparatively high level of security in the state; fortify and revitalize our educational institutions; reinvigorate the health sector to enable us achieve our aspiration of turning Enugu into the choice destination for medical treatment in Nigeria and indeed; generally restore Enugu to its status as the capital of the south east, the capital of Ndi Igbo.”
On the challenges posed by the dwindling oil revenue, Ugwuanyi said his government was not unmindful of the lean resources across the country due to the nose-diving of oil prices in the international market.
“We know that with the support of the good people of Enugu State, we will turn the present economic challenges into great opportunities to diversify our economy.
“Time has come for us to think outside the box and exploit fully the economic potentials of the state. It was for this purpose that we are going to pursue aggressively the exploitation of all potential sources of Internally Generated Revenue in the State.
“Our promise is, however, that this will be pursued in such a manner that it will not inflict much hardship on our people.
“We are determined to plug all loopholes for revenue leakages in the State in the coming year, and in this vein, we shall fully sustain the Pay-Direct system in all aspects of collection of Government revenue using the Treasury Single Account (TSA) model in the State.My administration also inaugurated the Economic Advisory Committee to advise the State Government on how best to improve the economic activities in the State.”
He said the implementation strategies would be based on diversification of the economy through Private Sector Participation in economic development, transparency and accountability, among others.
Meanwhile, details of the budget showed that a total sum of (N43,735,931,000) forty three billion, seven hundred and thirty five million, nine hundred and thirty one thousand naira representing 51%, is for Recurrent Expenditure as against (N41,795,319,789) forty one billion, seven hundred and ninety five million, three hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred eighty nine naira budgeted in 2015.
Capital Expenditure received (N41,443,518,000) forty one billion, four hundred and forty three million, five hundred and eighteen thousand naira which represents 49%, as against (N54,939,980,211) fifty four billion, nine hundred and thirty nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and eleven naira budgeted for 2015 fiscal year.
He further disclosed that government expects a Recurrent Revenue of (N63,097,415,000) sixty three billion, ninety seven million, four hundred and fifteen thousand naira as against (N85,338,129,700) eighty five billion, three hundred and thirty eight million, one hundred and twenty nine thousand, seven hundred naira forecasted in 2015.
According to him, Government intends to realize this amount through aggressive Internally Generated Revenue drive which is estimated to yield (N18, 882,415,000) eighteen billion, eight hundred and eighty two million, four hundred and fifteen thousand naira, representing 29.93% of total recurrent revenue and a projected share from the Federal Revenue estimated at (N44,215,000,000) forty four billion, two hundred and fifteen million naira which accounts for 70.07% of the total projected Recurrent Revenue.
Works and infrastructure received the largest chunk of the budget in the sum of N20.442 billion, representing 49.3% of the entire Capital Budget as against N21.625 billion allocated to the ministry in 2015 budget, while the agriculture sub-sector received an allocation of the sum of N1.317 billion. The education sector received a total vote of N 4.089 billion.
In a remark, the Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Hon. Edwin Ubosi, who received the budget, assured the Governor of its speedy passage.
He said “we want to assure the Governor that this bill before us will not take long before it is passed; before the second week of February, it will be passed.”
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