Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has presented a budget proposal for 2016 to the State House of Assembly. Ugwuanyi presented a budget estimate of eighty-five billion, one hundred and seventy-nine million, four hundred and forty-nine thousand naira (N85, 179,449,000) for the 2016 fiscal year.
The budget, tagged “Budget of Stability and Consolidation”, is lower than the 2015 budget of N96, 735,300,000 by N11, 555,851,000.
Presenting the budget to the law-makers at the State House of Assembly, Ugwuanyi hinted that the budget proposal was necessitated by the realities of the times with respect to revenue in-flow from Federal Allocation.
He said a total sum of N43,735,931,000 representing 51%, was for recurrent expenditure as against N41,795,319,789 budgeted in 2015.
According to him, N41, 443,518,000 which represents 49% is for capital expenditure as against N54,939,980,211budgeted for 2015 fiscal year.
He explained that in 2016, government expected a recurrent revenue of N63,097,415,000 as against N85,338,129,700 projected in 2015.
His administration, he said, intended to realise this amount through aggressive internally generated revenue (IGR) drive, which is estimated to yield N18, 882,415,000 representing 29.93% of total recurrent revenue and a projected share from the Federal Revenue estimated at N44,215,000,000 which accounts for 70.07% of the total projected recurrent revenue.
His words: “The estimated recurrent expenditure is N43, 735,931,000. Out of this amount, N28, 843,291,948, which represents 65.95% is for personnel costs, including Consolidated Revenue Fund Charges.
“A total of N8,530,986,875, representing 19.5% is for overhead cost, while N6,361,652,177 represents14.55% for subvention to parastatals and tertiary institutions”.
Ugwuanyi told the lawmakers, that the sum of N41,443,518,000, which was 48.65% of the budget size was appropriated for capital expenditure in 2016.
Ugwuanyi, therefore, urged the Speaker of the House and his colleagues to give the budget estimate an accelerated consideration.
Said he: “Therefore, I am leaving here confident that, as partners in progress, you will give this proposal accelerated consideration and passage so that we can begin to implement its provisions in earnest by early next year. For the good people of Enugu State, I solicit everyone’s support.”
The Speaker of the State Assembly, Edward Ubosi, assured Ugwuanyi that the House would study the budget estimate with a view to giving it a merited consideration.
