Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia
Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, has proposed a budget outlay of N157, 517, 504, 300 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, in what would be his last Appropriation Bill before leaving office next year.
The budget christened: ‘Valedictory Economic Expansion and Stability Budget’, was presented yesterday before the seventh Session of the state House of Assembly, as the governor said the 2023
proposal recorded a marginal increase of 6.95 percent above the 2022 fiscal policy.
A breakdown of the budget shows that recurrent expenditure would gulp N75,044,764,400, representing 47.64 percent of the total expenditure. This is 11.7 percent increase from the 2022 budget.
Though N82,472,739,900 or 52.36 percent of the budget outlay was allocated for capital expenditure, there was no appreciable increment as it was only enhanced by 3.38 percent compared to the 2022 budget.
While personnel cost took greater chunk of the recurrent expenditure with N33,689,581,700, the economic sector got the largest allocation of N48,782,088,800 in the capital expenditure.
Curiously, Ikpeazu did not indicate the sources of revenue for the 2023 fiscal year in the valedictory budget speech.
But he pointed out that since the 2023 budget “will only be partially implemented by (his) administration, it is imperative that we put the revenue and expenditure structures on a sound footing to help the incoming administration.”
However, the governor noted that the budget proposal was put together and designed taking into consideration the prevailing global economic problems in order to generate the state own peculiar and unique solutions.
According to him, his administration also considered “what policy reforms and investments should be prioritised and what trade-offs should be made between costs and benefits, while putting together this year’s budget.”
In reviewing the performance of his government in the past seven years, Ikpeazu stated that “this administration has recorded modest achievements across several sectors of the state economy.
“Through support and partnership with the federal government and several development partners, it has also introduced institutional and legal frameworks that will facilitate delivery of improved socioeconomic programmes to poor and vulnerable households by future administrations.
“In all these, the goal remains to find options for better life and livelihood for all Abians. And evidence shows we have not done badly.”
