BY JOE EFFIONG, UYO ON SEPTEMBER 16, 2014 · COVER
Akwa Ibom State
Government has said it may not be able to pay contractors for new
projects because the projected revenue of over N400 billion expected by
the state has not been realised.
The state Commissioner for
Information and Communications, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, made the observation
in reaction to the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) mid-year
publication which showed that the state earned the highest revenue of
N135.84 billion between January and June this year while Osun earned the
least with N19.61 billion.
While debunking the claim that the
state was the highest revenue earner in the country, Umanah said no
state in the country earned up to one per cent of the revenue of the
country.
His words: “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
dualize 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?”
According to the
information commissioner, the much touted N135.84 billion was a ‘drop in
the ocean’ when juxtaposed 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.
“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 said.
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