Cross River State Governor Sen. Ben Ayade, on Thursday presented the 2020 budget to the State House of Assembly after a long delay in line with the State tradition of early presentation of State budget to the State House of Assembly for early consideration and passage into law.
The budget christened Olimpotic meristemasis literary means budget for economic growth pegged at one trillion, one hundred billion, one hundred and sixty-seven million, five hundred and seven thousand naira, nine kobo, (N1.1trn), Ayade said .
The governor said that, the Cross River State Government will be taxing her citizens one thousand Naira (N1,000) monthly for Social Medical Services.tag Ayade care.
The Governor said the 2020 fiscal budget has a capital expenditure of N911 billion representing 82.8 percent of the budget and a recurrent expenditure of N188 billion, representing 17.2 percent of the budget
Ayade described the budget as one that is anchored on a belief “in the spiritual force which is the third energy.”
While explaining that Meristemasis is the active cell that stimulates growth in a young plant, which in this case represents the state, he pointed out that, “the budget will catalyse into existence a great opportunity for us all to put our hands and legs on the pedal and lift it off.”
He said the decision to allocate 82.8 percent of the budget to capital expenditure, was indicative of an aggressive commitment that will continue to reduce recurrent expenditure and focus on capital expenditure.”
On the sectoral breakdown as captured by the appropriation bill, Ayade disclosed that the health sector will gulp N44 billion, education N38 billion, new city development N35 billion while agriculture will get N22 billion and social housing to gulp N12 billion, among others.
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The governor announced plans to set up anti-tax agents to ensure that the tax policy of his administration is sustained as he will not like to tax the needy to prosperity.
“All low income earning people, civil servants earning below N100 thousand will be exempted from tax,” Ayade said, adding that, “small scale businesses like barbing saloons, hair dressing and other surviving agencies are hereby exempted from taxation.”
He also abolished the daily payments of N500 to N1000 levies by taxis plying the state, noting that they will now pay N2000 only every month.
On the size of the budget, the governor said: “We must come to the understanding that indeed any state whose budget is driven by the envelope size is limited in vision.
“There are two ways in business and public sector management that you derive your budget. It is either that your budget comes as an expression of your envelope size or as an expression of your ambition.
“The prosperity agenda set for this state does not allow me the opportunity of an envelope budgeting. Our budget prescribes the actual cost element while the intellectual financing shuns the cost because the ambition so expressed allows us the latitude to drive with to ensure that we guarantee that all aspects of the budget so provided are driven.”
It would be recalled that in 2016, the budget was christened “Budget of Deep Vision”, while in 2017 and 2018, the budgets were tagged “Budget of Infinite Transposition” and “Budget of Kinetic Crystallisation” respectively. In 2019, Ayade named the budget “Budget of Quabalistic Densification”
