Cross River Governor Ben Ayade has presented the state’s 2022 appropriation bill to the House of Assembly.

The N276 billion budget, titled “Conjugated Agglutination”, pegs N106 billion for recurrent expenditure and N170 billion is slated for capital expenditure. 

Cross River Watch reported uncertainty over the presentation of the budget due to the ongoing industrial action by organised labour in the state as the fiscal laws of the state stipulates that the budget be presented on or before the last working day of October.

The budget presentation was initially scheduled for October 22 but failed to hold as assembly staff were absent from the premises to facilitate the presentation ceremony.

In October, organised labour issued a statewide indefinite notice to local and state government workers to stay at home and await further directives.

The strike is to push for payment of gratuities for local government retirees from 2012, state civil servants from 2014, and demands around the non-implementation of promotion in the state.

On Thursday, negotiations between organised labour and the state government ended in a deadlock, with the trade union issuing a statement announcing the failed negotiations.