Professor Ben Ayade of Cross River State presented the 2021 appropriation bill to the State House of Assembly.
With the tag, ‘Budget of Blush and Bliss’, it had a total estimate of N277 billion.
The sum of N192,511,985,550 (67 percent of the entire budget) is earmarked to cover recurrent expenditure while N88,196,500 (33 percent) is for capital expenditure.
Governor Ayade explained that due to the cumulative impact of the disasters that characterised the year 2020, 67 percent of the budget goes for recurrent expenditure.
This, according to the governor, is set aside to meet the immediate and physical needs of residents of the state in the aftermath of the COVID-19 and #EndSARS.
“I decided along with my executive council after due consultation that the budget of this year will focus more on the humanitarian perspective.
“We have decided to shift focus from infrastructure, from big projects and refocus on the people.
“So this is the people’s budget. This budget takes care of unemployment, takes care of the issues of security consistent with the provisions of the Constitution in section 14 sub Section 2,” Ayade said during the presentation.
“We have decided to focus so much on Agriculture, youth Employment, Social housing, and youth skill development,” the governor further said.
The budget also has a provision for the establishment of Neighbourhood Security Watch which is aimed at dealing with the issues of neighborhood protection and create employment for youths.
Ayade explained the reason for the title of the budget, saying, “Blush because we are going through a situation where our face is red and in pain, it is blush because we are coming away from our big dreams of kinetic crystallization, from our Olimpotic Agenda and reducing ourselves to a consumptive effort just to reflect the mood of the times.”
The governor also condoled with residents of Cross River, who in the course of the recent arson and vandalism in the state, suffered any form of loss.
