3rd December, 2021
By Isaiah Eka
Akwa Ibom House of Assembly on Friday passed the state’s 2022 Appropriation Bill of N586.88 billion.
The budget is made up of N261.96 billion recurrent expenditure and N324.91 billion capital expenditure a N4.7 billion increase to the initial budget size.
Gov. Udom Emmanuel, had on Oct. 25, presented before the house, a total budget of N582.12 billion for the 2022 fiscal year.
The budget is christened “Budget of Re-defining Standards.”
Earlier, the Chairman House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr Uduak Odudoh, said the committee adopted participatory approach in the budgetary process.
Odudoh said Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other relevant publics were invited to public hearing on the budget.
He said the house approved N1.81 billion increase in the recurrent expenditure and N2.95 billion increase in the capital expenditure, bringing the total increase to N4.77 billion.
Odudoh said the house had recommended that the State Government should ensure prompt and commensurate release of funds to MDAs for execution of projects and programmes.
The committee chairman said that most MDAs had complained of zero releases in the 2021 fiscal year.
Speaker, Mr Aniekan Bassey, in his remarks, commended the house committee on finance and appropriation for the quick deliberations on the budget.
Bassey said the 7th Assembly would continue to have a robust and impactful relationship with other arms of government to foster development and growth in the state.
He commended the MDAs that appeared before the committee during budget defence, adding that the overall objective was to give priority to areas of immediate importance to the Akwa Ibom people.
The speaker said that by the passage, the commencement date for the budget implementation would be Jan.1, 2022.
He directed the Clerk of the House, Mrs Mandu Umoren, to send a clean copy of the bill to the governor for assent.