Governor Benedict Ayade of Cross River, on Wednesday, signed the state’s 2021 appropriation bill of N281,940,880,230 into law, thereby setting the stage for its implementation.
The signing of the bill followed its passage and transmission to the governor, same day, by the state House of Assembly.
The budget size shows an increase of N4,232,1144.68 from the N277,708,765,550 earlier proposed by Governor Ayade, who had tagged it budget of “Blush and Bliss”.
The House passed the budget after the presentation of the report of its finance and appropriation committee, chaired by Sunday Achunekang during a plenary. Achunekang recalled that Governor Ayade had presented the 2021 budget estimates to the assembly on November 5, 2020, adding that the bill was read a second time on Tuesday, November 24, 2020, before it was referred to the finance and appropriation committee for detailed consideration.
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He said the committee scrutinised the medium-term expenditure framework and also received testimonies from members of the State Economic Team after which MDA’S were invited to defend estimates proposed against their respective revenue and expenditure heads.
Achunekang stated that the 2021 budget would focus more on humanitarian perspectives including, hunger, poverty, unemployment, security and crime prevention just he stressed the need to create an alternative economy with less dependence on oil and federal allocation.
