A human rights lawyer from Akwa Ibom State says there is a clear misplacement of priority in the 2020 budget of the State government.
The budget presented by Governor Udom Emmanuel to the House of Assembly for approval recently but the public hearing organized by House Committeee on Appropriation was held on Monday, October 21 at the old Chapel of the House.
Speaking during a panel organised by Inspiration 105.9 FM, Uyo on Saturday, Inibehe Effiong noted “My reasoning is that the current administration is not paying attention to the concern of the people which means it lacks understanding to some of the issues affecting the common man in the streets. The budget is tailored towards what I consider to be matters or projects which should not be accorded priority.
“I look at the area one of our panelists has mentioned- the area that the substantial part of the funds has to be devoted to. I ask myself: why will the government budgets N7 billion for Ecumenical Centre or the socalled Akwa Ibom State Worship Centre when education, when agriculture, when health, when social programmes have not been accorded seriousness by the government.
“So, what I have seen is that the areas that the government is making substantial allocations to would not have bearing with the common man in the street. For me, this is a tragedy.”
Also, Comrade Iboro Ibara who was one of the radio panelists said “We have noticed that the social sector, which is us – the children, women and education and health- has been marginalised. This has been a recurring decimal over the past five years. The administration sector is crowding out the investment in the social sector.
Ibara who is the Vice Chairman and Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress, Akwa Ibom Council, argued that “If we have a budget that allocates only seven per cent to the social sector then you begin to ask yourself if we are sincere with the objective of poverty alleviation. You know the name that the proposed budget is christened Budget of Industrialisation for poverty alleviation. We have not seen the connection really.”
Analysing the budget further, he recalled “I said 2020 Budget is more realistic than the 2019. In 2019, N672.9 billion was budgeted while this year’s budget is N597 billion. This shows a reduction of N75 billion compared with the last year’s expenditure outlay. You will recall we were here to talk about the budget one year ago and we said there was no point running a bloated budget. That is an aspect of the budget being more realistic not in terms of alignment of the expenditure proposals with poverty alleviation programme.”
