ENUGU STATE GOVERNMENT URGED TO ENSURE PROPER IMPLEMENTATION OF ITS 2017 BUDGET
Some residents of Enugu State have called for proper implementation of this year’s state budget.
They made the appeal while reacting to the budget breakdown, recently announced by the State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mrs. Eucharia Offor in Enugu.
On the twenty-third of December last year, the Enugu state Governor, Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi presented a budget estimate of over one hundred and five billion naira to the Enugu State House of Assembly which latter passed it.
The budget showed that recurrent expenditure got over fifty-nine billion naira, recurrent revenue, seventy-one billion naira while capital expenditure stood at more than fifty billion naira.
The economic sector got the highest allocation, with thirty-six billion naira. Reacting to the budget, a businessman and social critic, Deacon John Williams described it as a budget of hope.
Deacon Williams maintained that if the State Government could achieve a lot with last year’s budget which was lesser than that of this year, a lot of achievements would be recorded if the budget was well implemented.
He called for more allocation to education sector to ensure qualitative education.
‘’If I have my way I will equally increase the budget of education because is key. When we educate people, they can become self reliant.’’
Deacon Williams called for judicious use of money allocated to each sector in the state. For an economist, who would not want his name mentioned, the budget was geared towards improving the state economy and employment generation.
He advised residents of the State to pay their taxes regularly for the development of the area.
‘’I want the government to look at its revenue generation holistically and review it. Go to local governments and look at the source of revenue and place a measure whereby revenue collected would go to the coffers of the government.’’
A journalist, Mr. Harrison Ogara in his reaction to the budget breakdown, commended the State Government for considering critical needs of the people in the budget such as health, education, agriculture and rural development.
Mr. Ogara however called for proper supervision of projects embarked upon by the State Government to ensure quality job.
‘’If you want to build a borehole it is expected that the people would have told you that their need is water. It is not when we have water already and you said you want to build borehole. Let us also tell the communities in whose domain all these things are to be built to be part of the monitoring. The people should be brought in, tracking is very important.’’
The State Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr. Mike Eneh noted that this year’s budget would tackle some of the programmes embarked upon by the Ministry.
OBIORA EZE