BY ANAYO OKOLI

UMUAHIA—GOVERNOR Theodore Orji of Abia State has presented a proposed  budget estimate of N149.6 billion to the State House of Assembly for consideration.
Governor Orji said the budget, tagged “Budget of Legacy Consolidation,” would concentrate on completion of on-going projects and embark on new ones that will impact positively on the people.

A breakdown of the budget proposal shows N87.5 billion was allocated for capital expenditure, while recurrent expenditure got N62 billion.
According to the government, it hopes to get annual recurrent revenue of N120 billion and N21.5 billion from donor agencies.

Presenting the budget
Presenting the budget proposal to the House of Assembly yesterday, Governor Orji said the budget was expected to have instant impact on the people in all sectors of the economy.

He said government hoped to get annual recurrent revenue of N120 billion and N21.5 billion from donor agencies.
He said the budget would focus on acceleration of building human and physical infrastructures for job creation and eradication of poverty in the state.

“We expect to achieve this through scaling up our expenditures in education, health, agriculture, water resources, environment, housing and support for women and youth empowerment programmes.
“The 2014 budget is about people and the scaling up of available basic social and infrastructural services in our state.

“2014 budget is also a bold statement to transform our state in areas we consider more critical and urgent which include peace and security, infrastructural development, improved healthcare delivery, enhanced internally generated revenue and education,” the governor further explained.

Raising IGR
Orji assured that the government would intensify efforts at improving its Internally Generated Revenue to enable it fund its budget from next year, instead of depending on allocations from the federal government.
Receiving the budget proposal, the Speaker of the House, Chief Ude Oko Chukwu, expressed hope that the budget proposal, when passed into law, would hasten the development of the state.