The 2020 budget proposals presented to Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly for approval has begun to experience heat from the stakeholders.
The budget christened The Budget of Industrialisation for Poverty Alleviation Phase 11 and presented by Governor Udom Emmanuel has a budgetary outlay of N597.800 billion against approved provision of N672.985 billion for 2019.
Th dissenting voice was registered by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Akwa Ibom Council during a public hearing on A bill for a law to appropriate monies out of the consolidated revenue fund and capital development fund to the service of Akwa Ibom State Government and for other matters connected therewith organised by House Committee on Appropriation and Finance held at the House of Assembly premises.
Comrade Iboro Ibara, Vice chairman of the council who rocked the boat of the budget remarked “Be that as it may, we are concerned about the budgetary appropriations made for the social sector which is unusually low. We have the social sector taking only about 7.2 per cent of the budget and the education taking only 3 per cent or N11.45 billion in the 2020 budget.”
Ibara who represented Comrade Sunny James, the state council’s chairperson lauded, “We are happy that in this year’s budget, the issue has been addressed and the budget is beginning to be very realistic and practical.”
Straightnews learned that education in the 2020 budget “has provision for basic facilities like libraries, science laboratories, instructional materials, workshop equipment, etc for distribution to our school children in public school system.
“Renovation and construction of more classroom and academic blocks, securing full accreditation of academic programmes, ensuring effective and efficient capacity building, recruitment of teachers, payment of bursary and scholarships to our students and providing boarding facilities to ensure a controlled and disciplined learning environment will be a continuous affair.”
He bemoaned that “Over past years, labour has had reason to make representations to the house and other formal appeals talking about the public hearing and we are happy that the house has graciously accepted those recommendations.
“We unfortunately do not have certain details which would have enabled us to address or access the budget. The Medium Term Expenditures framework is a document which is not in the the public domain and I not believe the house of Assembly has it and of course we do not have the budget implementation reports which would have enabled us to access where we are coming from to enable us to know where we are going to and to ensure that going forward is documented and made available for this kind of occasion.
“This house may remember that in the past labour and civil society organisations made representations on the issue of a bloated budget which was the characteristic of the past,” he pointed out.
“Let me express appreciation of the congress to the state House of Assembly which has over the years shown love and solidarity to labour movement. Most of the voices we are hearing are interesting but the implementation is what bothers us much.
“What if we employ everybody that is responsible at least to help the Akwa Ibomites to make sure that our policies we are hearing come to friction without which the purpose of our gathering here will be in vain and I am sure it is not going to be done,” the comrade submitted.
