The Enugu State Governor, Barrister Sullivan I. Chime, last Tuesday presented to members of the State House of Assembly the  2014 Draft Budget of  N93,287,000,000 for their consideration and approval.

Governor Chime explained that the amount was presented in order to consolidate on the gains of his administration in the past six and half years,  so as to maintain effective service delivery to the people and lay a solid foundation for the next administration.

According to him, this is higher than the 2013 budget size of N83,773,203,408 by N9,513,796,592 representing 11%  increase.

The budget, he further said,  is made up of N39, 342,549,163 as Recurrent Expenditure, which is 42% of the budget, while N53, 944,450,837 is for Capital Expenditure, representing 58% of the entire envelope.

He maintained that government also expected a Recurrent Revenue of N57, 490,114,000, adding that  government also  intends to realize this amount through internally-generated revenue which is estimated at N9,190,114,000) representing 16% and the state share of Federal Revenue put at N48,300,000,000, which is 84%.

“ I want to emphasize that our priority will be to complete on-going urban and rural roads, some of which we are doing in partnership with the affected local government councils on a 70:30 ratio.

“Today, our destination is in sight and as we take a long view at our 2015 transition, I am proud to say that we have done our best to uphold the terms of the social contract with our people”, he said.

On security, Governor Chime said: “To ensure safe neighbourhoods and security for lives and property across the state, this administration has always endorsed giving the law-enforcement agents the tools to combat crimes. Only recently, Government donated another set of one hundred security vehicles fitted with communication gadgets to the Nigerian Police for intra-city surveillance and inter-city monitoring”.

Other priority urban roads to be executed include the dualization of Nike Lake road and the rehabilitation of Abakpa-Nike Road and Ugwuaji-Awkananaw by Kenyatta.

The on-going construction of the new ultra-modern State Secretariat complex, he  said  the project  has reached an advanced stage, pointing out that work has also started on the new Governor’s office (Lion Building) and “is progressing steadily”. Government aims to complete and equip these buildings in the coming year.

His words: “To accomplish these lofty goals, the sum of N15.623 billion was allocated to the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure in the 2014 budget”.

Governor Chime said that the Ministry of Agriculture was allocated the sum of N2.401 billion with a lot of emphasis on the sustenance of the San Carlos Pineapple programme and the completion of work at Heneke and Adani farms as well as the development of the 17 green cities in the 17 local government councils.

“As we reform the education sector, rebuild infrastructure to create the right teaching and learning environment, ensure stricter supervision and sustain the free education policy, we will keep alive the dream to offer functional and qualitative education to our wards at different educational tiers.

The education sub-sector has a total allocation of N5.78 billion in the 2014 budget. This covers allocations to the Ministry of Education, State Universal Education Board, the Post-Primary School Management Board, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), College of Education (Technical), State Scholarship Board and the Science & Vocational Schools Management Board”.