Our Correspondent|14 January 2017
Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has signed the
2017 appropriation bill of N707 billion, christened Budget of Transposition, into law.
Speaking while signing the budget on 11 January into law, at the state executive council chamber, Calabar, Ayade said the state was adopting deficit budgeting so as to be able to warehouse expected third party investment as well as accommodate returns expected from investments made by the state.
“It is a budget that has an infinity clause which stretches beyond 2017 and saves us the agony of continuous planning and re-strategizing.”
The governor noted that “this year is a year of action because our spirit is desperately determined to make a different.”
According to him, “The energy that is expected to characterize 2017 budget is to drive the very core of the needs of our people which therefore defines the ambition and the level of weight that has got the state into an epoch budget of 707 billion.”
He maintained that the budget is one of infinite transposition which “believes in the infinity of dreams, capacity and intellect. It is a budget that believes also that budgeting and expectations of your
pocket limit your aspirations and dreams and therefore, the new
budgeting concept believes in deficit budgeting because it has tremendous advantages.”
Ayade who noted that “When you budget beyond your carrying capacities and physical realities, it allows your soul to lip into quantum height to be able to drive with the energy that must free the state from pains and agony, further stressed: “Normally, this deficit budget
mechanism is applicable in times of war. When a nation is in a state of war, it puts the budget beyond reason because it allows room to warehouse anything that comes and create an ambition to drive everything possible to see that you overcome.”
While justifying the adoption of the new budgetary strategy, Ayade explained that “the economic situation we find ourselves as a nation requires us to carryout such huge thinking and heavy planning.
“So, the budget strategy we have adopted is to focus on all our
investments at this particular time, stretching from our garment factory, the pharmaceutical factory, rice city, banana plantation investment, the cocoa processing facility, rice mill and other huge investment outlays that have short gestation period across the state,
bearing in mind the huge inflows that will come to us at the end of the day that will decoupled us from federation allocation.”
Governor Ayade who thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for believing in
the industrialization drive of his administration, said “the vision of
the government is one that has the capacity to take the nation out of
recession with the actualization of the proposed superhighway and
Bakassi deep seaport which gives us the hope that in terms of challenge, the President has a responsibility to give a budget support.”
Throwing a challenge to deliver on transforming of the state, the governor quipped: “At the close of our first term in office, if we have not made a difference, then we have no moral right to go before
our people to seek re-election. I will not offer myself if I have not convinced my self that I have done enough.”
Recalled that Gov Ayade had presented a N305 billion appropriation bill to the 8th Cross River State House of Assembly last year. This year HE signed a N707 billion act to law. Irrespective of its justification this financial projection sounds far way too outrageous to Cross Riverians.
For instance, a Lagos-based economist Missang Oyama has quarreled thus concerning the budget: 'When Mr Benedict Ayade, the governor of Cross River State presented the 2017 budget to the State House of Assembly late last year , it was N305bn he announced as the total budget estimate for 2017 fiscal year. After "due consideration" of the budget by the legislature in the past few weeks, the governor signed an Appropriation Act of N707bn for 2017 today in Calabar.
'I'm completely at a loss. How did we get here? So, governance has become the more you look, the less you see in Cross Rivet State? "Budget of infinite proposition", this is more than voodoo economics. In fact, this is the joke of the year.
'Cross River State, eyene mbom!', he concluded.
Popular social commentator Joseph Odok has said, 'For Emmanuel Ulayi Cross River State budget passed by the house of assembly is 301 billion naira, but for Cross River Watch the budget is 707 billion naira. Na who we go believe na
Last year Ayade read a piece of paper that was passed as the budget and the budget estimate was above 320 billion. Na which project Ayade complete with last year's budget? Na who Ayade dey deceive? I see fraud smelling
John Gaul Lebo led house of Assembly must you pass any rubbish sent to you by shoki master into law? Your oversight function empowers you to ask questions about the source of income to finance such budget. House of empty heads we need the breakdown of the budget
Cry Cross River State. Under Ayade we operate a voodoo economy.'
Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger, the Editor & Publisher of NegroidHaven.org
