By Ogar Monday; House of Assembly Correspondent
The Cross River State House of Assembly has reviewed downward the Cross River State’s 2016 budget from an initial sum of N303,100, 000 (Three hundred billion, one hundred million naira) to the sum of N259,155,419,195 (Two hundred and fifty nine billion, one hundred and fifty five million, four hundred and nineteen thousand, one hundred and ninety five naira).
Hon. Eteng Williams, House Committee Chairman on Finance and Appropriation while reading out the report of his Committee said the “adjustment is predicated on the fact that the 2016 approved budget did not anticipate the bail-out funds and all other crucial items of expenditure”.
He also added that Government has “kick-started the rice processing plants and the rice city project in line with the Federal Government policies on agro-industrial revolution for actualization of self sufficiency in massive food production”.
Justifying their act he stated, “The need for intervention in some of these developmental programs necessitated the review of the budget to reflect the utilization of such services under their respective heads and sub-heads especially as some inflows could not be realized as projected for the year”.
Hon. Eteng went further to add that some MDAs require a downward review of their expenditure as one or two of their projects have been rescheduled for 2017 and “this explains the reason for the reduction in line with the status of project execution”.
According to the report presented in the floor of the House, the revised 2016 budget has a recurrent revenue projection of N64, 014,168, 209 made up of N22, 224, 603, 647 from internally generated sources and N41, 789, 564, 562 from allocation from Federal sources.
The report also has the recurrent expenditure for the revised budget as N67, 451, 649, 397 from N65, 064, 493, 452 earlier budgeted, expected capital receipts of N191, 703, 769, 816 and a projected capital expenditure of N191, 703, 769, 816.
After dissolving to the Committee of the Whole with the Speaker, Hon. John Gaul Lebo as Chairman, the House subsequently passed the Cross River State Appropriation (Amendment) Bill 2016 and asked the Clerk to forward clean copies of the bill to the Governor, Senator Ben Ayade for assent.
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