Akwa Ibom Assembly Passes N672.9bn Budget For 2019
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The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has passed a budget of N672.9bn for 2019 fiscal year.
The budget which was passed by the Speaker of the state assembly Onofiok Luke said the state’s 2019 budget was an economic transition proposal which will support the completion agenda of the Governor Udom Emmanuel’s administration.
He said this is the last budget which the 6th assembly has legislated upon, it stands as the pioneer economic blueprint for the proposed Completion Agenda of the next 4 years.
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The budget which was titled “budget of industrialization and poverty alleviation, the budget has a total outlay of N672,984,760,760 made up of N447,902,796,440 for capital expenditure, N97,395,624,590 for recurrent expenditure and N127,686,339,730 for consolidated revenue fund charges.
The House on Wednesday also passed into law the Akwa Ibom Youth Development Fund Bill.
Luke noted that to meet salient socio-economic agenda of government, which includes infrastructural development, job creation, and revenue generation, the total budget size was increased by a little over 2billion Naira to meet the expectations of stakeholders who considered the parameters for the 2019 proposals during the public hearing on the budget.
According to him, inputs by the people during the public hearing inspired need-based augmentations especially in the Social Sector, adding that the overall objective was to see to it that priority was given to areas of immediate importance to the people while the government pursues the larger goal of full-scale industrialisation.
The bill seeks the implementation of a sustainable youth policy framework in the state.
It proposes the establishment of the Akwa Ibom Youth Development Fund whose ultimate aim is to create jobs and evolve greater opportunities for our teeming youths in the state.