Joseph Odok|29 May 2016|7:15am
The non publication of Cross River State Budget leaves two possible conclusion: it is either the State House of Assembly is too starved of funds to build a website to publish its laws, or the words of Ayade were passed as an Appropriation Law, thus the desperate moves to cover the fraud by making the budget secret.
It is so sad that in a modern communication world, the Cross River State House of Assembly has no website till date to make public its laws. The Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly has gone begging and has defined himself as an Mr. Ben Ayade's and Frank Ayade's boy.
The Speaker has mortgaged his constitutional safeguards given in lieu of his oversight function as a legislator just for crumbs that falls from the Ayade's table.
Rumours have it that Ayade lacked experts to prepare the budget or he may have been so much in a hurry that he padded Liyel Imoke 2015 budget and arbitrarily asigned figures without fine tuning the budget to withstand ready critics.
Be that as it may critics seem not ready to give up on the budget until publicized, they are ready to scrutinize the budget to expose its inherent fraud. But, why the delay in making the budget despite calls by well meaning citizens of Cross River State? Some have reasoned that the 2016 Cross River State Appropriation Law is a budget of fraud and the John Gaul Lebo led House of Assembly is not ready to publicize the budget after being bribed heavily by the governor and defacto governor Frank Ayade to cover their back.
Only a publication of budget in a website open to interested and concerned Cross river state citizens will dispel these rumours that are a product of the secrecy around the Cross River Appropriation Law.
In Mr. Ayade's government, the more you look, the less you see.
Joseph Odok
Is a University Don & Social Media Change Agent
