By Giwa SHILE
Sen. Godswill Akpabio (APC-Akwa Ibom) said the 2019 Budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday would revive the decayed infrastructure in the country.
Akpabio made the remark in an interview with journalists after President Buhari presented the appropriation bill to the National Assembly in Abuja.
”The good thing about today’s Budget presentation is that there is hope that there is going to be what I will call a rejuvenation in terms of infrastructural decay in Nigeria.
”I believe Nigerians are very proud today that they have a government, they have a president who is very determined to change not just the mental psyche of the Nigerian child but to change the face of infrastructure in the country,” he said.
According to him,“you would have noticed something about President Buhari quite unlike what happened in the past when we used to have so much of recurrent expenses sometimes up to 70 or 78 per cent.
”There was never a time under the PDP administration that we have more than 23 per cent on capital expenses, but look at the number of capital projects he rolled out today.
”That never happened before and that was why almost all the infrastructure died and we did not even have money for maintenance of infrastructure,” he said.
The former governor of Akwa Ibom State, who described the presentation as a success, said all that President Buhari had for each region in the budget were amazing.
”It was a very good budget presentation. It captures all facets of our national life and expectations of many Nigerians,” he said.
President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled a federal budget proposal of N8.83 trillion for the 2019 fiscal year.
The 2019 total budget estimate is N300 billion lower than the N9.1 billion being implemented for the current fiscal year.
The sum of N4.04 trillion or 50.31 per cent is earmarked for Recurrent Expenditure and N2.03 trillion representing 22.98 per cent for capital projects.
