Enugu State governor, Sullivan Chime on Tuesday presented a budget of N66.442, 293,596 for the 2011 fiscal year to the Enugu State House of Assembly.

The budget, tagged, ‘Budget of Continuity,’ was lower than the 2010 budget of N68.3 billion by about 1.9 billion ,representing a 2.8 percent decrease.

Mr Chime said the decrease was necessitated by the realities of the times, with respect to revenue inflow.

A breakdown of the budget shows a recurrent expenditure of N40, 114,206,596, representing 60.4 per cent of the budget while N26, 328,087,000, representing 39 per cen,t was for capital expenditure.

He said government will launch an aggressive campaign for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) estimated at N7.3 billion. Other sources of revenue will be from the state’s share of federal revenue estimated at N28.7 billion and Value Added Tax (VAT) estimated at N6 billion.

“The strategies for successful implementation of this budget include diversification and intensification of our revenue base, transparency and accountability and more effective expenditure supervision and control,” Mr Chime said.

On sectoral allocation, works and infrastructure received the highest allocation of N6.7 billion representing 25 per cent of the capital budget, followed by education which received N3.7 billion. Others are water, N2.29 billion; health, N1.78 billion; agriculture, N1.167 billion and rural electrification, N1.8 billion.

The governor implored the legislators to give accelerated hearing to the proposal to ensure early passage of the budget.