Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Tuesday, passed the state’s 2018 Appropriation Bill of N646, 649,512,690 billion into law.
Governor Udom Emmanuel had in November 2017 presented a budgetary estimate of N651 billion to the Assembly for consideration and approval for the 2018 fiscal year.
The budget as passed by the House of Assembly indicates a decrease of N5 billion from the initial budget size earlier presented by the governor.
Onofiok Luke, the Speaker, announced the passage during plenary following the adoption of the report and recommendations of the House Committee on Appropriations and Finance, headed Usoro Akpanusoh.
The house had approved N94,649,636,740 billion as total recurrent expenditure from the consolidated revenue fund totaling N120.858 billion, and N431,141,236,420 billion as the total capital expenditure for the year.
Mr. Luke said that the House, following the passage of the 2018 Appropriation Law, has put up a legal framework and fiscal architecture that would help the Governor Udom Emmanuel administration in consolidating on its industrialisation programme.
He stated, “We have discharged our responsibility within our legislative competence to ensure that the 2018 appropriation law is an expression of the yearnings and aspirations of our people.
“We weighed these desires during the public hearing by the Appropriation and Finance Committee.
“We were also able to project into the 2018 budget proposals and made increases where they were expedient, and savings, where they were necessary, having studied the 2017 budget implementation report.”
According to him, “Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly is in sync with the position of the governor in creating job vacancies in the public service in addition to what the private sector is currently doing, as government in the state remains the single largest employer of labour.
“This is indicated in our nod for the proposal for the recurrent expenditure without savings. As a house, we appreciate the efforts of the governor in the area of economic diversification.
“We acknowledge the administration’s wealth distribution and job creation efforts through vigorous development of the agriculture sub-sector.”
“It is for this reason that we have made augmentations in the Ministry of Agriculture for the provision of specialised agricultural programmes like the integrated farmers scheme, women agricultural empowerment programme.
“Specifically, we increased the proposal for women agricultural empowerment programme by 800 million from the original provision of 210 million.
“The aim is to make provisions for the economic empowerment of women, create wealth and provide jobs through agriculture,” he said.
Mr. Luke, therefore, urged the executive arm to ensure proper implementation of the budget and prompt release of funds to various ministries and agencies for speedy development of the state.
