Anambra to spend N70 million monthly on debt servicing

The Anambra government has said it will spend between N60 and N70 million monthly to service its domestic and external debts.

Mr Mark Okoye, Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget said this at a post budget presentation news conference in Awka on Thursday.

Okoye said the debt profile of the state, was presently at 15 million dollars, external loans, and N20 billion domestic borrowings.

He said budget, which was christened “Budget of Value-for-Money, Economic Diversification and Job Creation”, would trigger massive construction and infrastructure development in the state.

Okoye said some of the basic principles underlying the budget include value for money, economic diversification, job creation, strategic collaboration and public private partnership.

“We are proposing a budget size of N166.9 billion, the state expects to spend N63.9bn on recurrent expenditure and N103.1bn on Capital Expenditure to drive our policy thrusts of “Value-for-Money, Economic Diversification and Job Creation.

“It also highlights the significant infrastructural development expected in 2018, leveraging on the successful stability in our domestic economy during the challenging periods in 2016/2017.

“This budget is the first meaningful step towards consolidation of our previous performance to transform Anambra into a hub for business and investments as well as the poster-boy for inclusiveness and sustainable development in Nigeria,”he said.

The Commissioner said the state targets to grow its Internally Generated Revenue without causing additional burden to tax payers.

He said some of the sources it intended to fund the budget were federal allocation, Value Added Tax, grants and counterpart funding, refund for works on federal roads in and Paris fund worth N28 billion and domestic borrowing.

Okoye said the budget provided for N533 million outlay for conduct of Local government election in 2018.