Governor of Chief Willie Obiano yesterday presented the 2022 appropriation bill of N141.9bn to the State House of Assembly which is tagged, ‘Continuity, Sustainability and Development of a New Anambra.’
The budget is made up of N81bn capital expenditure which is 57 per cent and N60.9bn recurrent expenditure or 43 per cent of the budget.
One of the major high points of the budget is that the Anambra International Passenger and Cargo Airport is set to take 10 billion Naira as it goes into the 3rd year construction this translates to 7 per cent of the entire budget,previously the airport has take 6 billion and 8 billion Naira respectively from the 2020 and 2021 budget bringing the total cost of the airport to 24 billion Naira, it was estimated from the Airport project will take 3 years to construct that was why it was said that it will appear in the budget of 3 years, the Governor also noted that the airport is the biggest single project the government of Anambra State has undertaken since its creation in 1991.
The Governor went further to blame the dwindling revenue of the state to frequent sit-at-home protests by Biafra agitators, the governor said the budget was premised on the crude oil price benchmark of $50 per barrel.
The governor said the state’s budget was expected to be funded from Value Added Tax of N19.8 bn and N40.36bn expected from Internally Generated Revenue.
Also, N21.67bn would be spent on salaries and wages; N18.3 bn would be spent on group life insurance, loan, pensions and gratuities of retirees, while N23.78bn would be spent on overheads.
The governor equally said, “Despite the disruptions in economic activities occasioned by the sit-at-home campaign by non-state actors, we achieved a recurrent expenditure half year budget performance rate of approximately 35.4 per cent, while our capital expenditure half year budget performance stood at approximately 59.6 per cent.
