Akwa Ibom Assembly passes 2021 supplementary budget, raises estimates by N6 billion
Akwa Ibom Assembly passes 2021 supplementary budget, raises estimates by N6 billion
Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, on Tuesday, approved the State Government’s 2021 Supplementary Appropriation Bill, raising the estimates from the proposed N136.5 billion to N142.7 billion.
The House Committee on Finance and Appropriations raised the amount by N6.2 billion in its report presented at plenary.
The House considered the recommendation of the Committee on Finance and Appropriations as a Committee of Supply and unanimously adopted the report at plenary.
The cover letter on the bill earlier presented to the House by Governor Udom Emmanuel, on Tuesday, last week, had stated that the supplementary budget request was for a total sum of N136.5 billion.
The House Committee on Finance and Appropriations, however, recommended a total sum of N142,724,539,000, of which N39,302,000,000 is for recurrent expenditure while the sum of N103,422,539,000 is for capital expenditure for the year ending December 31, 2021.
Chairman of the committee, Uduak Odudoh (Ikot Abasi/Eastern Obolo state constituency), while presenting the report said, “The initial approved recurrent revenue for 2021 budget stood at N255,003 billion.
“The supplementary budget of N142,724 billion would be funded from expected VAT revenue (N5.000 billion), arrears of 13% derivation revenue (N131.895 billion) and from internal loans (N6.220 billion).
“Under recurrent expenditure, the committee observed that the initial approved sum of 214.799 billion has been increased by the sum of N39.302 billion, to give a total revised provision of N254.102 billion to cater for recurrent expenditure needs.
“During deliberations at the committee level, observations arose as to the extent of implementation of the 2021 budget, so as to guide the committee in assessing the need for supplementary provisions.
“Based on the explanations by the Honourable Commission for Finance to the effect that the supplementary budget is borne out the need to realign priorities in line with the Completion Agenda of the present administration, the committee was adequately satisfied”.
Odudoh added, “The supplementary budget, as explained by the Honourable Commissioner for Finance and Honourable Commissioner for Economic Development and Ibom Deep Seaport was basically meant to cater for the effects of inflation, escalating foreign exchange rates on priority and key programmes and projects of government to make for effective and on-schedule delivery.
“Also, there has been huge outstanding Interim Payment Certificates (IPGs). In addition, there exist a number of basic emergency intervention projects to contend with”.
According to Odudoh, the committee found it expedient to approve the supplementary provisions to take care of projects and programmes including construction and dualization of roads with bridges in many areas of the state, purchase of 300,000 coconut seedlings and land clearing, purchase of cocoa seedlings and clearing of cocoa plantations at Essien Udim and Obot Akara local government areas, construction of Hanger Floor and completion of Back of House facilities of the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) at the Victor Attah Internnternational Airport, among others.
Under recurrent expenditure in the grand summary of the 2021 supplementary budget, Approved Provision 2021 is N214,799,917,250; Recommended Augmentation/Savings is N39,302,000,000, while the Revised Provision 2021 is N254,101,917,250.
For capital expenditure, the Approved Provision 2021 is N241,450,752,750; Recommended Augmentation/Savings is N103,422,539,000, and the Revised Provision 2021 is N344,873,291,750.
Approved Provision 2021 under the total budget size is N456,250,670,000; Recommended Augmentation/Savings is N142,724,539,000, while the Revised Provision 2021 is N598,975,209,000.
Meanwhile, the House also passed the amended 2020 Traditional Rulers Law, and ratified the Audited account of the State government amounting to N2,184,436,574.71 for the year ended 31st December, 2020.
This was sequel to the consideration and adoption of the reports by the House Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs chaired by Mark Esset (Nsit Atai state constituency), and House Committee on Public Accounts, Charity Ido of Ukanafun state constituency.
