By Chibota Edozie
Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has presented a budget of N96,735,300,000 (Ninety six billion, seven hundred and thirty five million three hundred thousand naira) for the year 2015 to the State House of Assembly.
This represents a two billion, nine hundred and eighty seven million, three hundred thousand (N2,987,300,000) or three percent increase from the 2014 budget of ninety three billion, seven hundred and forty eight million naira (N93,748,000,000)
A total sum of fifty four billion, nine hundred and thirty nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and eleven naira (N54,939,980,211) was set aside in the new budget for Capital Expenditure representing 56.8 while one billion, seven hundred and ninety five million, three hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and eighty nine naira (N41,795,319,789) is for Recurrent Expenditure.
Works and infrastructure received the lion share of N14.9 billion to be deployed mainly for the completion of on-going projects in both the urban areas and payment of liabilities to contractors.
The Education sector got the sum of N6.1 billion while health and agriculture received N4.9 billion and N4.3 billion respectively. The sum of N2.9 billion went to the water sub-sector with commerce and industry, tourism, sports, security, environment, housing, transportation, rural also receiving substantial allocations.
Reviewing last year’s budget, Governor Chime said the government recorded remarkable successes in all sectors noting that he simple reason is that the 332 kilometres of rural roads constructed by the Government have enhanced inter-connectivity and drastically reduced travel times from the seventeen (17) Council headquarters to Enugu because they can all now be easily accessed by road.
He further said, “with 295 kilometres of roads completed in Enugu and Nsukka urban cities, not many of our people, today, remember the pains of moving around some seven years back.We were voted in to bring about good times and we have done our best to do just that”.
Noting that the budget presentation was the last he would make as Governor of the State, Chime said, “When I took office in 2007, we visited all the 472 communities in the State and identified the key development needs of our people as chosen by them. The good news is that all the communities have had some or all of their chosen projects executed for them by Government. We are committed to completing and handing over the various on-going urban and inter-Local Government roads which are currently at various stages of completion”.
He thanked the Enugu House of Assembly for the support given to his administration since its inception saying, “Today’s event fills me with immense pride of what we have achieved as a united team stitched together by destiny. The credit belongs to all of us – the executive, legislature and judiciary. More importantly, the bigger credit goes to all our people. All I can offer is to say thank you to all concerned”.
On the forthcoming general elections, the Governor urged the people to be guided by good conscience as they elect our future leaders adding that “Enugu State is so important to be entrusted into the hands of people with no clear-cut vision on how to deepen development and enhance the quality of life of our citizens”.
Receiving the budget, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odo commended the Governor for the outstanding achievements of his administration saying that the Governor had substantially and satisfactorily implemented all the budgets approved by the House since the inception of the administration in 2007.
He urge the members of the House to give the current budget a speedy passage to ensure that the funds appropriated would be promptly utilized for their intended purposes.
