Ebonyi budgets N99.8b for 2014

Governor Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State on Monday presented the 2014 budget of N99.8 billion to the state House of Assembly.
The budget, tagged: Budget of Stabilisation, is 4.45 per cent lower than the N104.3 billion budgeted in 2013.
A breakdown of the figure shows that N41.3 billion (41 per cent) was appropriated for recurrent expenditure while capital expenditure would gulp N53.4 billion (54 per cent).
The governor said N5 billion (five per cent) had been earmarked as stabilisation fund.
Elechi said: “This novel practice, which we have adopted in recent years, has been found very expedient and useful as there is little recourse to the old habit of virement from one sub-sector to another.
“Part of it will surely go into capital expenditure and others into recurrent components as the year progresses.
“From this distribution, we have continued to respect the World Bank’s formula, which gives higher percentage of budget to the capital and less to the recurrent.”
The governor said that receipts were being expected from projected opening balance (N14.9 billion); internally-generated revenue (N17.6 billion); and statutory allocation from the federation account (N32.2 billion).
He said the receipts also included capital receipts (N29.9 billion) and external loans (N5 billion).
The governor said that in 2013, the state recorded giant strides in education, health, agriculture, commerce and industry, power generation, water supply and general administration.
The Speaker of the assembly, Hon. Augustine Nwazunku, commended the governor for the implementation of the 2013 budget and hoped for a better implementation of that of the 2014 appropriation.