The Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu has presented a budget proposal of N140 billion before the state House of Assembly.
The budget was tagged budget of partnerships and opportunities” to the state House of Assembly.
While presenting the budget, the governor disclosed that it is geared towards attracting the right partnerships and open up investment opportunities for development.
The budget represents a 28.15 percent increase from 2017 budget of N111 billion while the overall performance of 2017 budget indicated 70.1 percent achievement.
A budget breakdown of N140 billion naira shows that capital expenditure is to gulp N72 billion while the N68 billion is for the recurrent expenditure.
As at the third quarter of 2017, the revenue performance represents 59.35 percent performance as its internal revenue did not perform better.
“This budget is packaged to follow medium-term expenditure framework which looks at projections for a three-year period, that has projections for the year 2018 to 2020 and is compliant with the international public-sector accounting standard,” he said.
He added, “I must say that the state is committed to fiscal management process in line with international best practices making the state investment-friendly for foreign investors.
“Much of the economy of Nigeria is said to be out of recession, the economy indices such as the rate of inflation, interest rate, a decrease in foreign direct investment show that we are still not near, getting out of the hooks.
“This has greatly determined the direction of our projections and inform the theme of the 2018 budget tagged “Budget of Partnerships and Opportunities.”
Mr Ikpeazu further called for transparency and cooperation among the various tiers of government in seeing to its execution.
He said, “We must also take steps to show tenacity, frugal and transparency in our financial management because partnerships can only be attracted when the financial management is conducive.
“We also have prioritized our needs in line with the request harvested from the various communities and the five pillars of development of the state.
“We expect to boost trade and commerce, agriculture and agric business as well as catalyze the emergence of vibrant small and medium scale manufacturing enterprise in Abia State.”
