by Azubuike Azikiwe
The Government of Akwa Ibom state says it does not have the financial capacity to pay contractors for new projects due to the the fact that it is yet to realise its projected revenue of over N400 billion.
The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, stated this while reacting to the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) mid-year publication which indicated that the state earned the highest revenue of N135.84 billionin the first half of the year.
He said, “When you are talking about allocation of N135.84 billion, it sounds big to you, but it is not a lot of money when you are doing key projects. When you look at projects like the new international stadium, these are not bread and butter projects. These are quality projects that cost money.”
“You don’t build flyovers with N1 or N2. You don’t build underground tunnels with N2; you don’t dualise federal roads with N2; you build them with billions, so you put these monies into big projects. So, the states you are mentioning, are they able to do these types of projects?”
The commissioner also added that the N135.84 billion allocation was benign compared with the over N400 billion 2014 budget estimates of the state government which provided for 80 per cent capital expenditure and 20 per cent recurrent expenditure.
He said, “If God allows you to have something from your God-given resources, you also need to apply these resources to key infrastructure that would help turn your state around in terms of the right infrastructure, and I think Akwa Ibom has been prudent.”
“If you look at that money you are talking about, if you take 80 per cent of it, you will be talking about N80 billion and then you may be talking about N20 bilion for recurrent. What will that amount to? If you juxtapose that with the budget of the state you can see that we are running a deficit.”
“If that is what we have as half year report, and we have over N400 billion as budget estimates for 2014, you can see clearly that we are running a deficit and we may not have money to pay for projects,” he added.
Na them sabi. anynews of chibok girls?
how much did he spend n common flower. he should give us figures
none of our business.
yey talk. thieves
he should tell us his problem and stop lamenting
chai . like he did all those things he clamed
thats quite huge. where is the money?
after all their high revenue earnings
Noted. mr governor
why is he telling us? are we suppose to pay for him
after embezling