BEN Ayade, the governor of Cross Rivers state has presented the 2021 appropriation bill of N277,708 billion tagged ‘budget of blush and bliss’ to the State House Assembly.
Ayade made this known via his social media page on Thursday saying that the total budget for 2021 stands at N277,708,738, 550.50.
“Today I presented the CRS 2021 budget of Blush and Bliss to the H.O.A which stood at the sum of two hundred and seventy-seven billion, seven hundred and eight million, seven hundred and thirty-eight thousand, five hundred and fifty naira, fifty kobo (#277,708,738, 550.50),” his tweet read.
According to Ayade, the capital expenditure of the budget is NGN85,196,800.00 while recurrent expenditure is NGN192,511,985,550.
Unlike the government’s initial budget proposal in 2020, N911 billion was budgeted for capital expenditure while recurrent expenditure was pegged at N188 billion leading to a total budget of N1.1 trillion tagged ‘Olipotic Meristemasis’.
The ICIR in a data analysis had reported that the budget was unrealistic considering the Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state and its allocation from the federal government.
The budget was eventually slashed to N147 billion following the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria.
The state government said the ‘olympotic budget’ was reduced due to the ‘fall in federal revenue and allocation of expenditure’.
On Thursday while presenting the 2021 appropriation to the Cross River State House of Assembly, Ayade said he would focus on security and neighbourhood watch to combat insecurity in the state.
The previous budgets passed by Ayade administration which many consider as high sounding but deliver marginal public service are:
2021 – Budget of Blush and Bliss
2020 – Budget of Olimpotic Meristemasis
2019 – Budget of Qabalistic Densification
2018 – Budget of Kinetic Crystallisation
2017 – Budget of Infinite Transposition
2016 – Budget of Deep Vision.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94