Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State has signed the state’s 2018 Appropriation Bill with a total outlay of N646.65 billion into law.
The budget is about N4.35 billion lower that the N651 billion estimates presented last year by the Executive to the State House of Assembly for consideration.
The newly enacted law had the recurrent expenditure raised to 94.65 billion from N92.657 billion earlier proposed while the capital expenditure was slashed to N431.14 billion from the N437.674 billion proposed by the Executive arm of government. However, the Consolidated Revenue proposal was retained at N120.86 billion as proposed.
The governor stressed that his administration would continue to collaborate with the Federal Government in the release of funds due the state to enable the full implementation of the Act.
He expressed appreciation to the head of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies for the cooperation they accorded the House of Assembly Appropriation Committee which contributed to the timely passage of the law.
He also commended the lawmakers for scrutinizing the projects sites to ensure due process was followed before passing it into law.
The Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Linus Nkan, who interacted with journalists shortly after the governor signed the budget, said the government was comfortable with the oversight role played by the lawmakers in ensuring that the budget met the aspirations of all stakeholders involved in the budgetary process.
While expressing optimism about full implementation of the budget as signed into law, Nkan pointed out that the slight adjustments made by the House to the proposal earlier presented by the Executive were jointly discussed with MDAs before the passage.
