Ayade assents to 2017 budget, adopts a 3-year MTEF model for capital expenditure

By Inyali Peter, Calabar

Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade  has signed the 2017 appropriation bill of N301 billion into law.

The budget tagged “Budget of Infinite Transposition”, also incorporated an additional N306 billion for medium term expenditure framework to carter for capital projects covering 2017, 2018 and 2019 fiscal years. This brings the sum total of the budget to N707 billion.

Ayade while signing the budget said that,  “It is a budget that has an infinity clause which stretches beyond 2017 and saves us the agony of continuous planning and re-strategizing. This year is a year of action because our spirit is desperately determined to make a different.”

According to him, “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.”

The governor maintained that the “budget believes 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.”

“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”.