General Manager, Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, Mr Celestine Ogolo (right), congratulating a retired staff of the corporation, Mrs Dickba Cookey (left), during a sendforth party in Port Harcourt recently. With them are Director of Publications, Mrs Juliet Njiowhor and Director of Production, Chief Dagogo Clinton (middle) Photo: Ibioye Diama
The Cross River
State House of Assembly has passed the 2016 Appropriation Bill of N303 billion for implementation.
It would be recalled that the state Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, had on October 26, 2015 presented on the floor of the House a budget proposal of N350 billion.
The Chairman House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mrs Regina Angogo representing Yala 1 State Constituency while presenting the report of the committee to the House, said that the reduction of the 47 million naira from its original proposal was arrived at due to dwindling oil prices.
Angogo added that, the Committee carefully studied the budget after the various MDAs had defended their budget proposals, hence the need for the state government to spend the sum of 303 billion naira for 2016 fiscal year.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, the recurrent expenditure for the 2016 budget is put at 64.88 billion naira, while the capital expenditure is 285.11 billion naira. Out of the 64.88 billion naira for the recurrent expenditure, 24.92 billion naira is expected to be spent on personnel cost, while 20.94 billion naira for overhead cost and 19 billion naira is for statutory expenditure.
Also, the sum of 41.78 million naira is expected to be drawn from the federation account in 2016.
The recurrent revenue for the state is proposed at 63.72 billion naira, while 21.93 billion naira is expected to be drawn from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), “she added.
Speaking during the passage of the bill, the Speaker of the House, Mr. John Gaul Lebo, commended the committee for a job well done and also thanked the media and civil societies for their involvement in the whole process right from its inception.
He went ahead to advise MDAs to make judicious use of the funds allocated to them, saying that they would be closely monitored by the legislature.
According to the Speaker, the passage of the budget will also go a long way to assist the Governor in carrying out his signature projects which will bring growth and development to the state as well as increase its economic potentials.
Friday Nwagbara, Calabar
