The Anambra State House of Assembly on Tuesday, passed the state 2021 Appropriation Bill of N143.56 billion.
The approval came more than 34 days after Gov. Willie Obiano presented the 2021 appropriation bill of N143.7 billion to the house for approval.
The passage followed the adoption of the report of the House Committee on Budget Finance and Appropriation during plenary.
Presenting the report, Mr Obinna Emeneka, chairman of the committee said that the budget was made up of N86.86 billion capital expenditure and N56.77 billion recurrent expenditure, representing 60.5 per cent and 39.5 per cent respectively.
“After scrutiny and review, we recommend that the budget size be retained except for little adjustments in some ministries and agencies allocation,” he said.
Raising an observation, Mr Ejike Okechukwu(PDP-Anaocha) said that the N9.82 billion originally budgeted as personnel cost for the Post Primary Schools Service Commission (PPSSC), has been cut down to N4 billion.
According to Okechukwu, such reduction in the budget for education is unacceptable and could affect service delivery.
The Speaker of the House, Mr Uche Okafor commended the committee for a thorough scrutiny of the budget and conducted a voice-vote for the adoption of the report.
The house passed the bill after the voice-vote and the speaker directed the Clerk of the House, Mr Pius Udo, to send a copy of the bill to Obiano for his assent.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 2021 budget was N6.5 billion higher than the N137.1 billion of 2020.(NAN)
