Abia Budgets N102.4 Billion For 2015 Fiscal Year

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News, Nigeria 2015 Election Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

African Examiner – Abia State Governor, Chief Thoedore Orji, has presented a budget estimate of N102.4 to the state House of Assembly for the 2015 fiscal year.

The figure represents a 12% decrease from the 2014 budget outlay of N115.3 billion.

Governor Orji Budgets N102.4 Billion For 2015 Fiscal Year

Delivering the budget he termed “Valedictory Budget” on the floor of the House, Governor Orji disclosed that the recurrent expenditure is N62.20 billion while the annual estimated expenditure is N40.18 billion.

Governor OrjI said the decrease was occasioned by the global fall of crude oil price and premised on the framework of International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) and structured along a Medium Term Expenditure framework which takes into account projections for the years 2015 to 2017 using 2013 budget as the base year.

He expressed his expectation that the 2015 budget will provide the completion of all on-going projects, put in place job creation and poverty reduction, as well as physical and human infrastructure and by so doing go a long way in transforming the state in critical areas such as peace and security, infrastructural development, health care delivery, improved internally generated revenue (IGR), education, agriculture, water resources, environment, housing, gender sensitivity and youth empowerment programmes among others.

According to Governor Orji, fiscal control policy measures would be put in place in order to achieve full implementation of the 2015 Appropriation Bill when it finally becomes law.

The adoption of Public Private Partnership initiative, the governor said would build strong stakeholder support which will create wealth, empower the the private sector and generally bring about improvement in the welfare of Abians.

Responding, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ude Oko Chukwu urged the state government to endeavour to consolidate and improve on the gains so far achieved with a view to returning the state to the part of sustainable economic growth and development through structural and institutional reforms.

The Speaker advised that job creation programmes be further formulated and implemented to make the domestic economy to become more productive.

He further urged for increased access to such variables that will continue to guarantee the attainment of the Millenium Development Goals ( MDGs) and the Abia State blueprint on vision 20-20-20 among others.