Cross River Assembly increases 2022 budget size to correct shortfalls

The Cross River State House of Assembly has approved the increase of the 2022 budget from the previously announced N276,279,960,667,35 billion as presented by Governor Ben Ayade to N354,505,535,313,25 billion naira.

Speaking in Calabar on the reasons for the increase, the Speaker of the Assembly, Eteng Williams said, “finally, it was discovered that the initial provision of N14 billion was not enough for debt servicing and debt refinancing, additional N20 billion has therefore been used to augment this provision.”

Earlier, the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Sunday Achunekang, while reading the report of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation on the State Budget Estimate for 2022 disclosed that, “in view of the fact that the Governor’s presentations represent the first reading of the Bill, it was Scheduled and read the Second time on Thursday 25th November 2021 after a robust deliberation by members, the Bill was therefore referred to the Committee on Appropriation for detailed scrutiny and to report back within three weeks.”

However, the Speaker of the house who presided over the Committee of the whole house after the budget passed third reading, stated that soon after the governor presented the budget, TED FUND, agreed to support Cross River State Government with Fund’s amounting to N40billion to be directed at the following projects. Tertiary Cancer Research Centre, Tertiary Orthopedic Centre, University Library for British Canadian School and Tertiary Tourism Centre.

According to the Speaker, approval for procurement of critical hospital equipment like Pet Scan Linear Accelerator and Cyclotron were received after the budget had been presented by the Governor.

Eteng also emphasised that the items would be bought at the current exchange rate which brought in an additional N4.5billion.

Schedule 1 Personal and overhead cost stood at N11, 965, 354,107.96, Schedule 2 Capital expenditure, N225, 746, 261,606.98 while Statutory Expenditure was pegged at N9, 802, 919, 600,31, bringing a grand total of the 2022 estimate to N354,505,535,313.25.

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Cross River Assembly increases 2022 budget size to correct shortfalls