• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Cross River presents N1.43trn 2019 budget to House

Cross River presents N1.43trn 2019 budget to House
Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State on Wednesday presented an appropriation bill of N1.43 trillion only to the Cross River State House of Assembly, for 2019 fiscal year.
Presenting the budget tagged, ‘Budget of Qabalistic densification,’ at the House of Assembly chambers, Calabar, the governor said 30 percent of the budget was for infrastructure.
“The budget for 2019 is put at the sum of one trillion, 43 billion, 967 million naira. 30 percent of it is dedicated to infrastructure, we have 18 local government areas and each of these local government areas needs a mini superhighway connecting it through its commercial nerve into the superhighway, which serves as the main evacuation corridor,” Ayade explained.
The concept of the budget is to also provide an evacuation corridor across the 18 LGAs, while emptying it into the deep seaport, he said, adding, “Once we can achieve this accomplishment, the establishment of two other industrial parks at the central and northern senatorial districts will follow.”
The governor, who intimated that “all of these are contained in the details of the industrial budget in the Ministry of Trade and Industry accounting for 25 percent of the budget, which will adequately provide the needed energy, audacity and intellectual spiritism that will enforce the realisation of massive industrialisation.”
On his budget style, Ayade said, “I am applying the 42 ways of doing business without money,” pointing out that, “at anytime, money becomes your problem, that means your brain is failing you. Cross River is such a rich state and an inherited one. I inherited a state with very great potential and it is part of my budget philosophy to focus on wealth instead of focusing on my woes.”
On the performance of 2018 budget, he said 74 percent of what was estimated had been achieved, out of the N1.3 trillion N644 billion was spent on Superhighway, N88 billion for the deep seaport in spite of the huge debt burden of the state amounting to NI.8 billion monthly.
Reasoning that though the budget for 2019 was quite ambiguous, the governor explained that “it was driven by practical reality for if you budget based on envelope, you will be limited by what you can do. At anytime that your capacity to deliver service is a function of the depth of your pocket, you would have failed,” warning, “Your capacity should rather be measured by the depth of your intellect and the depth of your spiritual force, which is the fear of God and commitment to Holy Ghost.”
To his appointees, he said, “As we created a policy in my first term to put food on the tables, in the second tenure, the policy will be, food on the table, hand on the plough. This means that, as there is food for you, there is also work for you, so, nobody will sit.”