‘We ‘ll Be Less Dependent On Federation Allocation’

The Chairman of
Akpabuyo Local Government Area of  Cross River State, Hon. Patrick Ene Okon, has expressed the council’s determination to depend less on the monthly federal allocation from Abuja.
Okon disclosed this  in Ikot Nakanda, Akpabuyo Local Government headquarters while presenting the 2015 budget estimate of two billion, six hundred and eighty four million, one hundred and sixty-three thousand, seven hundred and forty-five naira (N2, 684,163, 745. 00) only, to the council’s legislature for consideration.
This came even as the council boss urged the legislators to be ready to make sacrifices that would enable the council actualize its dreams.
The sum of N1, 411,240,565 was earmarked for capital expenditure, while recurrent expenditure gulped the sum of N1, 790, 354, 104 in the document christened ‘Budget of Hope’.
While noting that the budget would be revenue driven, the chairman said, “Our budget estimates in the last couple of years has been Federal  Allocation (FAAC) dependent, leading to a neglect of the myriad sources of revenue at our disposal.”
“We intend to reverse this trend from 2015. The 2015 budget estimate is therefore, revenue driven, which shall position us to reasonably articulate and implement our developmental programmes”, he said.Continuing, the chairman said, “we will strive to broaden our revenue base by redirecting our efforts to all the unexplored sources of revenue in the area. We will equally strive to raise the performance index in the existing sources of revenue through modernization of collections to minimize leakages.”
Further breakdown of the budget indicates that the economic sector got the highest allocation of eight hundred and seventy-eight million, three hundred and fifty-seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight naira (N878, 357, 848) or 62.24%.
The chairman, who decried the dwindling statutory allocation from both the Federal account and State’s funding intervention, also explained how the application of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) facilitated the council’s performance appraisal in the preceding year.

Friday Nwagbara, Calabar