ASSEMBLY PASSES CR APPROPRIATION AMENDMENT BILL 2020

By Itam Offor

Cross River Legislators have on Tuesday passed the State's Appropriation Amendment  Bill 2020 into law during plenary at the Assembly Complex, Calabar.

The 2020 revised budget has a budget size of N147,130,166,966, which shows a downward review of N953,038,340,721 from the 2020 approved budget size of N1,100,168,507,687.

Outlay of the 2020 revised budget shows recurrent revenue has been reviewed downwards from N121,461,868,952 to N66,085,762,847 indicating a variance of N55,376,106,105 while recurrent expenditure which was earlier approved at N184,900,048,007 has been reduced to N76,336,396,298 showing a decrease of N108,563,651,709.

Similarly, capital expenditure has been reviewed from N915,268,459,680 to N70,793,770,668 showing a decrease of
N844,474,689,012.

Earlier, the Clerk of the House, Barr. Bassey Ekpeyong had read a correspondence from the State Government which requested the Assembly's consideration and passage of the revised budget.

The Lawmakers who had dissolved into the Committee of the Whole, deliberated on the revised budget and  noted that the initial approved budget of N1.1 Trillion was no longer realistic in view of the current harsh economic situation occasioned by the COVID 19 pandemic globally.

 They unanimously voted for the downward review of the 2020 budget accordingly.

The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Eteng Jonah Williams noted that the reasons for the downward review of the budget were all tied to the COVID 19 pandemic which according to him; "has thrown up a lot of socio health, and economic issues", including total lock down, loss of livelihood, unemployment, hunger, pressure on health facilities amongst others.
Williams further noted that " the COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in a sharp drop in revenue at Federal and State levels" adding that; "proceeds from direct taxes are very low due to slow down on economic activities while in flow from Federal sources is low as a result of the decline in crude oil prices".

You may recall that the State Governor Sir Ben Ayade had in December 2010 presented a budget size of N1.3 Trillion christened budget of "Olimpotic Meristemasis" while the Assembly subsequently passed a budget size of N1.1 trillion into law.