Umahi presents N101bn appropriation bill for 2016

Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, yesterday presented to the House of Assembly, an appropriation bill of N101, 154, 646,000 (One hundred and one billion, one hundred and fifty four million, six hundred and forty-six thousand thirty naira) for the 2016 fiscal year.

Umahi’s appropriation bill was tagged ‘Budget of Divine Actualisation.’ The governor said that N62, 396,750,000.00, representing 61.68 per cent was earmarked for capital expenditure, while N38,757,896,030.00 (38 per cent) was set aside for recurrent expenditure.

The total estimate of about N101.1b is slightly above the N96.52bn slated for 2015.

The economic sector got N36.890 billion, the largest chunk, being 59 per cent of the estimate of which the governor said was with the basic aim of tackling infrastructure challenges in roads, water, electricity, agriculture, education, commerce and industrial sectors.

The Ministry of Works got the highest allocation within the economic sector with N25 billion, representing 67.8 per cent; Ministry of Water Resources, N3billion; Commerce and Industry, N2billion; while other ministries shared N6.89 billion being 18.7 per cent of the budget for the sector.

The social sector got a total of N10.304 billion representing 16.5 per cent of the capital budget with education having allocation of N5.909 billion, health N2.445 billion and others N1.95 billion.

Judiciary and regional (capital city, Abakaliki and environs) received N1.117 billion and N0.203 billion respectively.

Giving an overview of the 2015 budget Umahi noted that the past administration had on December 30, 2014 presented to the House the 2015 appropriation bill.

He explained that the then Executive did not come up to defend the budget, a situation that dragged until he was sworn in as governor on May 29, 2015.

The governor added that the development made him to review the estimate and presented same to the fifth Assembly on June 22, 2015.