Ugwuanyi Presents N186.64bn 2022 Budget

Gideon Arinze in Enugu

Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi yesterday presented a budget proposal N186,635,135,770 for the 2022 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly for consideration and passage.

Presenting the budget proposal tagged: “Budget of Sustained Growth and Consolidation”, Ugwuanyi disclosed that it was 9.9 per cent higher than the 2021 budget which was N169.845 billion.

The governor noted that the budget proposal was designed to ensure the completion of all ongoing projects across the state, adding that the 2021 budget implementation was affected by the many challenges of insecurity in the country.

He explained that out of the total budget size, the sum of N71,477,449,812.00, representing 38 per cent of the total budget is meant for Recurrent expenditure while the sum of N115,157,685,770.00, representing 62 per cent of the budget size will take care of capital expenditure.

He maintained that the projections for the 2022 Budget of the state were founded on the economic and fiscal updates of national inflation rate of 13 per cent; national real GDP growth of 4.2 per cent; oil production benchmark of 1.88 million barrels per day; oil price benchmark of $57 per barrel and exchange rate of N410.15 per United States dollar”.

On the 2021 budget performance, he noted that his administration made efforts to bring relief to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises as well as engage fully in the preparatory activities for the Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) Program for Results.

“It was an initiative of the federal government of Nigeria supported by World Bank to mitigate the economic disruption occasioned by the COVID-19-19 Pandemic by protecting the livelihoods and food security of the poor and vulnerable families while facilitating the recovery of local economic activities in all the participating States” he said.

He noted that the year started on a note of recovery as national and sub-national governments embarked on strategic economic engineering, through innovative economic policies, to reflate the Covid-beaten economy of the previous year.

In his response, Speaker of the State House Assembly, Hon. Edward Ubosi thanked the governor for presenting what he described as “a modest and realisable budget estimate” while also assuring him that the house would study it from r subsequent approval and passage.