Business
A’Ibom To Commit 43% Revenue On Economic Dev
Akwa Ibom State Government has pledged to commit 43 per cent of its total revenue in 2014 to economic development.
Governor Godswill Akpabio made the pledge last Wednesday while presenting the 2014 Appropriation Bill to the State House of Assembly in Uyo.
Akpabio said that the economic sector would gulp N130.85 billion or 43 per cent of the proposed N469.3 billion earmarked as budget in 2014.
He said that projects and programmes under economic sector would include activities the of the Ministries of Works, Finance, Agriculture, Commerce and Industries, Science and Technology.
According to him, the 2014 budget, tagged “Budget of Actualisation”, is based on the principles of International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS).
Akpabio said that the 2014 budget proposal was N129.81 billion less than the revised Akwa Ibom Appropriation Law of N599.18 billion in 2013.
A breakdown of the budget showed that general administration got N93.2 billion or 30.7 per cent of the budget proposal, while N69.19 billion or 22 per cent of the budget was earmarked for the social sector.
The Justice and Law sector is to receive N6.06 billion or two per cent of the budget proposal, while the regional sector is allocated N4.5 billion or 1.5 per cent of the total budget.
Akpabio identified oil revenue derivation fund account for N307.72 billion as the highest source of revenue for 2014 budget while N42 billion will accrue from statutory allocation.
Others are N29.6 billion projected as the state’s internally generated revenue, N20 billion from SURE-P fund savings, N14 billion from value added tax and N3.5 billion retained revenue from parastatals agencies.
He said that the major thrust of the budget would be the completion of on-going projects like the 30,000 capacity stadium, the specialist hospital and the Tropicana Entertainment Centre before the end of 2015.