Abia State Governor, Chief Thoedore Orji, has presented a budget estimate
of N102.4 to the state House of Assembly for the 2015 fiscal year.
The figure represents a 12% decrease from the 2014 budget outlay of
N115.3 billion.
Delivering the budget he termed “Valedictory Budget” on the floor of the
House, Governor Orji disclosed that the recurrent expenditure is N62.20
billion while the annual estimated expenditure is N40.18 billion.
Governor OrjI said the decrease was occassioned by the global fall of
crude oil price and premised on the framework of International Public
Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) and structured along a Medium Term
Expenditure framework which takes into account projections for the years
2015 to 2017 using 2013 budget as the base year.
He expressed his expectation that the 2015 budget will provide the
completion of all on-going projects, put in place job creation and poverty
reduction, as well as physical and human infrastructure and by so doing go
a long way in transforming the state in critical areas such as peace and
security, infrastructural development, health care delivery, improved
internally generated revenue (IGR), education, agriculture, water
resources, environment, housing, gender sensitivity and youth empowerment
programmes among others.
According to Governor Orji, fiscal control policy measures would be put in
place in order to achieve full implementatikn of the 2015 Appropriation
Bill when it finally becomes law.
The adoption of Public Private Partnership initiative, the governor said
would build strong stakeholder support which will create wealth, empower
the the private sector and generally bring about improvement in the
welfare of Abians.
Responding, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ude Oko Chukwu
urged the state government to endeavour to consolidate and improve on the
gains so far achieved with a view to returning the state to the part of
sustainable economic growth and development through structural and
institutional reforms.
The Speaker advised that job creation programmes be further formulated and
implemented to make the domestic economy to become more productive.
He further urged for increased access to such variables that will continue
to guarantee the attainment of the Millenium Development Goals ( MDGs) and
the Abia State blueprint on vision 20-20-20 among others.