A Non Governmental Organisation, NGO, Policy Alert has expressed reservations over low budgetary provisions to health and education in the 2022 Appropriation Bill of Akwa Ibom State government.
Executive Director of Policy Alert, Mr. Tijah Akpan in an interaction with Correspondents in Uyo yesterday said the N11.06B and N7.65B allocation to Health and Education represent less than four percent of the budget and is by far short of the recommendations of the United Nations.
Akpan also frowned at some unexplained but huge budgeted items contained in the budget of some MDAs including the Government House while that of key sectors of health and education has either reduced or has remained without releases.
“Exception of Hospital Management Board, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, AKSU, and AKS Judiciary in the top biggest spenders in the recurrent expenditure for 2022, we find the Office of the Accountant General drawing 28.97% and Government House drawing 10.5% of the entire recurrent expenditure in 2022.
“These two offices gulps (N102.66bn) nearly 40% of recurrent expenditure in 2022. We frown at the high cost of governance as reflected in the Government House recurrent Budget. In 2021, N22.83bn was budgeted for both personnel and overhead costs, as at the 3rd quarter of 2021 43.01% (N9.82bn) was implemented.” He explained.
The Executive Director querried the over N15B, representing over 5% of the entire recurrent expenditure to a Budget Office with a staff strength of less that 150.
“We are also surprised to see the Akwa Ibom State Budget Office drawing 5.93% of the entire recurrent expenditure budget, making the top 3 in the recurrent expenditure budget (N15.44bn) for 2022. N4.38bn, N3.38bn, and N4.65bn were recurrent expenditure for Akwa Ibom State Budget Office in 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
“The 69.87% increase in 2022 recurrent expenditure for the Akwa Ibom State Budget Office deserved to be queried. The Budget Office should explain why its recurrent expenditure increased from N4.65bn in 2021 to N15.44bn in 2022.” He said.
Akpan called for further explanation on Accrued Expenses which has been moved from the Office of the Accountant General to the Ministry of Works.
“It has a whooping allocation of N58bn. The Office of the Accountant General had an allocation of N27bn for in 2021 and suddenly has N3bn in 2022.” He stated.
He lamented that AKRUWATSAN and Akwa Ibom State Water Board have a combined budget of 190 million naira in 2021 with no releases as at September ending 2021 but 228 million naira has been earmarked for the two WASH sector agencies.
Akpan regretted that the Akwa Ibom Primary Health Care Development Agency had a budget of 1.092 billion naira in 2021 as at the third quarter ending nothing was released while the state government has intended to spend the same amount in 2022.
Policy Alerts however applauded the state government on the 45:55 recurrent to capital expenditure ratio for 2022 adding that prioritizing capital expenditure would give substance to government’s completion agenda.
