Clement James 
Otu Otuita is the Special Adviser on Budget to Governor Bassey Edet Otu of Cross River State. In this interview, he spoke about many issues, including, but not limited to, revenue generation in the state. CLEMENT JAMES brings you excerpts:
What are your expectations with regard to the budget circle?
For us in budget office under the directive of His Excellency, the governor of Cross River State, Prince Bassey Edet Otu, what we expect to see in 2025 is sustainable growth. Government wants to sustain what was achieved in 2024. We are looking at all the services that government rendered in 2024 to ensure that there are better services in 2025.
2025 is here, what should the people expect in terms of increase in provision of electricity to households?
When we are looking at electrification, in Cross River State, we have two agencies of government that is charged with that responsibility to ensure that we have electricity to the last mile of the state. We have the ministry of power and the state electrification agency. So far these two, we have a total of N14.3bn to improve on our electrification services. Of this amount, the ministry of power and renewable energy has an allocation of N5bn while the state electrification agency has N9.2bn. So, we are looking at improving electricity connections in our communities, both urban and rural communities. This budget has different line items and we have an omnibus document which has functions that are tied to economic benefits. So, the budget for electricity has the component of procurement of transformer and other retrofitting needed for connecting communities. Again, we are all aware that government is doing so much in providing street lights, traffic lights and solar energy. And there is also the government decision to provide electricity to the last mile, people living in hard to reach areas through the provision of solar energy – something that is portable but will carry all lighting points.
Will that, to some extent, put an end to the incessant fire outbreak in recent time?
That’s exactly what the intention of government is. It’s just unfortunate that we have people who are living in communities where there is no electricity. I know it is everywhere in Nigeria, but the Cross River State government is committed to ensuring that there’s light in every community in the state. At least, there should be lighting points which will limit people buying fuel to power their generators. I think that’s what the government is planning to do in 2025 and the State Electrification Agency is driving that process.
We all know that the state is largely an agrarian state and farmers depend on road infrastructure to move their products to where they can sell. What’s the road infrastructure budget like?
Now, in the 2025 budget, about N100bn is set aside for road infrastructure and the House of Assembly graciously approved the amount allocated for that sector. This money will go into constructing new roads and rehabilitating old ones. Already, if you go to the northern part of the state, you will see that there is ongoing construction of several road projects. The same thing can be said about the central, in Ikom, Yakurr and the rest. For the Southern part of the state, you can see ongoing road construction and rehabilitation, the latest that people are talking about is the Adiabo/Ikoneto Road
Talking about Adiabo/Ikoneto Road, it’s very critical to the state but it’s so swampy. What do you think will take the government to construct that road?
Well, it is a construction project and it is not expected to be completed within two years because when you look at the terrain, you will discover that it’s a swampy area that will need filling and backfilling. So, the Adiabo/Ikoneto road has been structured in what we call the medium term framework. What that means is that the project is spread over a three year period. Government cannot do that road as a one-off. It is expected in the next two years, money would be appropriated for the project and once that happens, the road would be funded. In terms of the total contract sum, the Ministry of Works will be able to provide the details.
Apart from the Adiabo/Ikoneto Road, do you have an idea of other roads to be constructed within the 2025 budget circle?
I’m very sure that we have over one hundred roads under construction currently. But I know that of Agoi-Ibami Road, among many others.
The Bakassi deep sea port has been brought back to life in the 2025 budget. Where will government get funds to execute this project which is capital intensive?
Well, the budget document is not one that government wakes up and says: ‘this is what we are going to do’. It’s actually a process from where we have a consultative conversation. Now what we do is the baseline survey. Government cannot just say we are doing Bakassi deep sea port. There must be a survey. That survey was provided for in the 2024 budget. So, whatever government was doing that had to do with survey was adequately provided for. In any case, government has budgeted about N5bn for the deep sea port in 2025 appropriation and it’s actually a medium term framework arrangement. Again, government may not be spending much on the project because it’s a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement. However, government will do the basics because the money is going to come from other sources, including the Afri-Exim Bank.
In a situation where money is not fully spent at the end of a budget circle, what do you do?
Let me say that there’s actually no money anywhere to be either refunded or kept aside. The budget document is one that shows how the money will come and how it would be expended. Now, there are projects you cannot carry out in twelve months or thirty months or so. You then structure it under the medium term expenditure framework. So there is no money that government has kept in one place to fund the budget. If you look at our budget document, from our projection, we are expecting N43bn from internally Generated Revenue, from federation account and federal revenues, we are expecting N298bn. So that is our expectation and the money is not enough to fund our budget because we have budget size of N538bn. This budget is because of the new salary regime which prompted an upward adjustment of the earlier budget. If you have a new salary regime, it simply means that the personnel cost will rise. So, government made an additional provision of about N30bn for personnel cost.
Now, what impact has the 2024 budget made on the lives of people given the escalating cost of living?
Now, at least, you can see an organized system. There is an improved welfare. You can see what government is doing in agricultural sector, in the area of infrastructure, health sector. If we want to be fair to this government, you can see that there is no local government area that government is not carrying out expenditure activity
At the end of 2024 budget circle, was there any deficit?
Looking at 2024 budget, the size was originally N296bn; but in the course of implementing the budget, there was need to make supplementary provision and this took the budget to N437bn. And there was actually no way government would have made the supplementary provision if the budget did not perform at 100 %. As at September 2024 when we published our third quarter budget performance report, we were already at 60% and we were hoping that on or before January 28, the 4th quarter budget performance report would be published. Why it is like that is because it is an internationally acceptable practice.
How has government been able to deal with leakages in generating internal revenue?
Let me answer it this way, even though the chairman of State Internal Revenue Service should be able to do that. Government has made progress so far. This government met N800m as monthly internally Generated Revenue and not exceeding N1.2bn. But from the commencement of this administration, we now have a monthly revenue of about N30bn. So with that, it means that leakages have been blocked, if there was any, and it also suggests that so many people have been brought into the tax system.
