Chime budgets N96.7b for 2015

Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has presented a budget estimate of over N97.6 billion for 2015 to the State House of Assembly.
This represents over N2.9 billion, or three per cent increase from the 2014 budget of over N93.7 billion.
Making his budget speech at the State House of Assembly chambers on Tuesday, Chime explained that over N54.9 billion was set aside in the new budget for capital expenditure, while over N41. 7 billion is for recurrent expenditure.
According to him, Works and Infrastructure received the lion share of N14.9 billion to be deployed mainly for the completion of on-going projects in both the urban areas and payment of liabilities to contractors.
Chime disclosed that the Education sector got the sum of N6.1 billion, while Health and Agriculture received N4.9 billion and N4.3 billion respectively.
He said, the sum of N2.9 billion went to the Water sub-sector with Commerce and Industry, Tourism, Sports, Security, Environment, Housing, Transportation, also receiving substantial allocations.
Reviewing last year’s budget, Governor Chime said the government recorded remarkable successes in all sectors, noting that the 332 kilometres of rural roads constructed by the Government have enhanced inter-connectivity and drastically reduced travel times from the 17 Council headquarters to Enugu, because they can all now be easily accessed by road.
“With 295 kilometres of roads completed in Enugu and Nsukka urban cities, not many of our people, today, remember the pains of moving around some seven years back. We were voted in to bring about good times and we have done our best to do just that,” he said.
Noting that the budget presentation was the last he would make as Governor of the State, Chime recalled that when he took office in 2007, he visited all the 472 communities in the State and identified the key development needs of the people as chosen by them