The Cross River State House of Assembly has slash the 2016 budget of N303bn earlier passed in February 2016 to N259.1bn due to the economic recession in the country.
The Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr. Eteng Williams, disclosed this in Calabar on Monday.
Williams, who represents Yakurr II Constituency, said realities necessitated that the budget be cut to N259.1bn.
He said that the revised budget was passed into law on October 21, stressing, “With the realities on ground, there is a need for us to do a revised budget to face realities and act accordingly. That is why we decided to revise the state budget from the initial N303bn to N259.155bn.
“In the revised budget, we are expecting to do a lot of work because this is the right period when most of the construction works are done. There are some projects that were not contemplated at that time; but as the state moves ahead, we found out that there was the need for us to make provisions for them.
“We have a shortfall in the federal allocation, this was largely caused by the drop in oil price in the international market,” he said.
Williams said that the revised budget would focus on agriculture to ensure food provision and job creation.
“The capital expenditure of the revised budget is about N191bn while the recurrent expenditure is about N67bn.
“The budget is mostly on capital expenditure. We need to boost our economy with the resources available to us,” he said.
Punch
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