Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State, yesterday presented a budget estimate of N164.496 billion before the state House of Assembly for the 2015 fiscal year.
The amount represents a marginal increase of 3.17 percent over the figure for 2014, which stood at N159.459.
Details of the estimate showed that N110.979 billion or 67.5 percent is for capital expenditure, while N53.517 billion or 33.5 percent is for recurrent expenditure.
The high percentage allocation for capital expenditure, the governor said, was consistent with the broad policy thrust of providing adequate support investment in his economic pillars and enablers, aimed at ensuring that the cost of governance was adequately provided for.
Road infrastructure received the lion share of 48 percent of the capital expenditure, followed by education, which has allocation of 45.6 percent of the total expenditure of the social sector.
Also, health sector has 32.5 allocation, while trade, commerce and industry was allocated 4.7 percent.
Similarly, agriculture has 4.1 percent with Obiano promising that his administration would develop more agricultural land across the state to enhance food security and encourage farmers to form cooperatives to enable them access required funding from financial institutions.
Obiano said his government was determined to make capital expenditure more purposeful and impactful, explaining that henceforth, qualification of projects in terms of importance would remain the guiding principle in the allocation of funds to sectors and sub-sectors.
The speaker, Chinwe Nwaebili promised that the Assembly would speed up the passage of the budget and used the occasion to debunk insinuations in the social media that the lawmakers were planning to impeach the governor.
