From Paul Ibe, Enugu
Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu state, has presented a budget proposal of N96,735,300,000 ninety six billion, seven hundred and thirty five million, three hundred thousand naira (N96,735,300,000) for the 2015 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.
The estimate, represents two billion, nine hundred and eighty seven million, three hundred thousand (N2,987,300,000) or three percent increase from the 2014 budgets of ninety three billion, seven hundred and forty eight million naira (N93,748,000,000)
A total sum of fifty four billion, nine hundred and thirty nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and eleven naira (N54,939,980,211) was set aside in the new budget for Capital Expenditure representing 56.8 while one billion, seven hundred and ninety five million, three hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and eighty nine naira (N41,795,319,789) is for Recurrent Expenditure.
Works and infrastructure received the lion share of N14.9 billion to be deployed mainly for the completion of on-going projects in both the urban areas and payment of liabilities to contractors.
The Education sector got the sum of N6.1 billion while health and agriculture received N4.9 billion and N4.3 billion respectively. The sum of N2.9 billion went to the water sub-sector with commerce and industry, tourism, sports, security, environment, housing, transportation, rural also receiving substantial allocations.
Receiving the budget, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odo commended the Governor for the outstanding achievements of his administration saying that the Governor had substantially and satisfactorily implemented all the budgets approved by the House since the inception of the administration in 2007.
He urge the members of the House to give the current budget a speedy passage to ensure that the funds appropriated would be promptly utilized for their intended purposes.
