BY: VITALIS UGOH, Calabar.
Cross River state governor, Senator Ben Ayade, Friday signed the 2017 appropriation bill of N301 billion into law.
Christened “Budget of Infinite Transposition”, the 2017 Appropriation Bill, also incorporate an additional N306 billion for medium term expenditure framework to carter for capital projects covering 2017, 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ayade stated: “it is a budget that has an infinity clause which stretches beyond 2017 and saves us the agony of continuous planning and re-strategizing”.
He noted that “this year is a year of action because our spirit is desperately determined to make a different adding “the energy that is expected to characterize 2017 budget is to drive the very core of the needs of our people which therefore defines the ambition and the level of weight that has got the state into an epoch budget of 707 billion”.
He maintained that the budget is one of infinite transposition which “believes in the infinity of dreams, capacity and intellect. It is a budget that believes also that budgeting and expectations of your pocket limit your aspirations and dreams and therefore, the new budgeting concept believes in deficit budgeting because it has tremendous advantages”.
Ayade said “when you budget beyond your carrying capacities and physical realities, it allows your soul to lip into quantum height to be able to drive with the energy that must free the state from pains and agony, further stressed”.
“Normally, he said, this deficit budget mechanism is applicable in times of war. When a nation is in a state of war, it puts the budget beyond reason because it allows room to warehouse anything that comes and create an ambition to drive everything possible to see that you overcome”.
