Abia lawmakers approve Otti’s N22.3bn Virement request

… Receive the state’s Medium Term Economic Framework

From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia 

Abia State House of Assembly has approved a Virement Warrant request of N22.3 billion by the state Governor, Dr Alex Otti, for the services of the government.

The Virement Warrant request was approved on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, following the consideration of a letter from the Governor to the state legislature in that regard.

This is coming on the heels of presention of the Abia State Medium Term Economic Framework to the lawmakers by the  Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr. Kingsley Anosike.

The Deputy Speaker, Mr Austin Mmeregini, who presided over Tuesday’s plenary, read the Governor’s letter containing his virement request to his colleagues.

Virement is the transfer of a surplus from one budget expenditure head to cover a deficit in another budget expenditure head or offsetting overspending in one account with underspending from another account. It results in budget reallocation. Otti requested for a virement of the sum of N22, 263, 269, 900.

The House Majority Leader, Hon. Uchenna Kalu, moved a motion asking the lawmakers to consider the Governor’s  request during  the plenary. 

Hon. Kalu explained that the request was necessitated by the present administration’s desire to rebuild the state and improve the welfare of her citizens.

“This bill is a straight forward bill. It seeks to vire money from the expenditure subheads where they are not properly captured to the areas where they will be properly utilised and needed without actually increasing the budget.”

“We are all aware that the present administration merged some Ministries when it came on board, so it is proper for the state to vire funds from some of the Ministries to the areas where they are needed in order to ensure the optimal utilisation of the funds.

“I urge my Honourable colleagues to support this bill to enable the present administration to continue to deliver democracy dividends to the people of Abia,” the Majority Leader said.

The presiding Deputy Speaker, put the motion to vote, which the lawmakers unanimously voted in favour of. 

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr. Kingsley Anosike, also on Tuesday, presented the Abia Medium Term Economic Framework, covering the period from 2024 – 2026, on the floor of the House.

Mr. Anosike described the Framework as a document that would serve as a roadmap for Abia government to achieve fiscal transparency and efficiency.

He said:”The purpose of this document is to provide an indicative sector roadmap for the period covering 2024 to 2026 which constitutes the Mid-Term Budget Framework.

“The second is to provide a backwards looking summary of fiscal and economic trends that will affect the public expenditure in the future, and the future means the budget cycle covering 2024 to 2026.

“To set out medium term fiscal objectives and targets which will include revenue mobilisation, level of public expenditure, deficit financing and all these are public expenditure programmes.”

The Commissioner said that the government intends to strengthen its fiscal framework, control and enforce compliance with established spending limits in government transactions to achieve a sound budgeting system.

He said that the key target for the government from a fiscal perspective would be to create efficiency in personnel and overhead expenditure to have greater resources for capital development.

According to him, the Ministry had proposed a budget sectored around increasing the Internally- Generated Revenue (IGR) by a minimum of 17.5 per cent every year, from 2024 to 2026.

Mr. Anosike further said that the priority of the government, with respect to sound budgeting, would be completion of ongoing capital projects before commencement of new projects.