By Chimezie Anaso
Anambra Government says N68 billion of the total estimated N170 billion budget for 2022 financial year will be sourced from the capital market.
Ms Chiamaka Nnake, Commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning, and Development Partners in Anambra said this on Tuesday at the breakdown of the Revised 2022 Budget presented by Gov. Charles Soludo to the State House of Assembly last week.
The amount represented 40 per cent of the total outlay, while Internally Generated Revenue and Federal Allocation would provide N61.2 billion and N40.8 billion, representing 36 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively.
Nnake said the budget, which was increased from initial N142 billion to N170 billion, made provision of 64 per cent for capital projects, as against 57 per cent in the old budget, while recurrent expenditures merely increased by 0.79 per cent.
She said the slight increase was to make for the additional workforce envisaged in the Ministries of Education and Health due to the ongoing recruitment in those sectors.
The commissioner said that N54 billion, representing 50 per cent of the capital outlay would go to the Works Ministry for simultaneous investment on local roads and urban regeneration.
The budget indicated that about N4 billion would be invested in the continuation of the Anambra Airport project.
The budget was however, silent on the uncompleted Awka Township Stadium and the International Convention Centre projects.
According to Nnake, the 0.79 per cent increase in recurrent expenditure is due to an increase in personnel cost for the salary of teachers and health workers who are currently being recruited.
She said, ”every community would get N25 billion as against N20 billion in the budget year under Community Choose Your Project, to address development challenges that were peculiar to them.
“We left the budget on security unchanged at N9bn; we count on off-budget resources from donations to augment, while N2bn was budgeted for the construction of new Government House and Governor’s Lodge.
“The budget for transport was increased by 61 per cent to N1.6bn to support traffic decongestion and road management, while N2.3bn was allocated to water,” she said.
Other priority sectors that got allocations were: Youth, N2.4bn; ICT N I.3bn and Agriculture, N700 million for the commencement of annual Oil Palm and Coconut Revolution.
She said that Education got N1.1 billion; Healthcare, N2.9 billion and Digitising 1GR collection, N1.2 billion and N2.5 billion for setting up a leisure/entertainment park in Agulu Lake.
The Commissioner said N54 billion had been earmarked for matching of counterpart funding for development partners programmes.(NAN)
