Efio-Ita Nyok|3 December 2017
Thursday, 30th November 2017, Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State presented a N1. 3 trillion 2018 appropriation bill christened Budget of Kinetic Crystallization to the 8th Cross River State House of Assembly.
Gov Ayade has said that he opted for an intellectual budget instead of the usual cash budget. Explaining why the figures appear high in the eyes of an ordinary Cross Riverian, he said ‘it is not a cash budget, but an intellectual budget’.
Ayade further informed the Assembly that such provisions would send a positive message to investors who are aware that by the gargantuan budgetary provisions, 'they can warehouse their investments because sometimes people give funding either by way of capital or by direct project implementation.'
According to him, 'Deficit budgeting focuses on what you intend to achieve, providing a warehouse mechanism that compensates for a sudden surplus. If such provisions are not met, if your budget is only limited by your pocket, you have kept aside the intellectual capital which is a core requirement in budgeting.
'The deficiency in the traditional budgeting has led to the continuous struggle and conflicts between budget and its implementation because the dependence on the midterm expenditure frame work or the strategy paper only allows you to focus based on your proposed income and expenditure, thus creating a misbalance, leading to a distortion of programmes.”
He said rather than the envelop budget, he opted for the “a kinetic budget that allows me flexibility to dream to the extent that God has given me the intellectual capacity to reach.”
He urged members of the State House of Assembly to join him in dreaming big if the state was to achieve its objective of financial independence.
Breakdown of the budget is thus :
*Capital Expenditure : 70% of the budget has been earmarked
*Recurrent Expenditure : 30% of the budget.
—Key capital projects that will be addressed are the state’s deep sea port project estimated at N82 billion deal with the issues of dredging, preliminary reclamation and preconstruction in 2018,” and the super highway.
—Budget funding : unknown, maybe dreams, investors and grants.
—IGR for 2016 : Data from the National Bureau of Statistics just released IGR report shows the state made a total of N14.7 billion as IGR. Year to date, the state has so far made a total of N9.4 billion as IGR, indicating it may not meet last year’s target.
—Debt Profile:
Foreign debt of N168 billion and domestic debt of N128 billion as at June 2017. This implies Cross River may have a herculean task in funding the budget, except through grants.
This appropriation bill has incited both state and national reactions. However, international development consultant has said that, '…what I think has happened is the state government anticipates to access loans, and some of these hard lenders especially those in Europe and the Japanese may want to see high proposed income streams into the state coffers. I may be wrong, but I think the Budget is designed that way to meet certain financial expectations and borrowing criteria set forth by lenders'.
