New Cross River State Commissioner of Finance, Asuquo Ekpenyong, gave this charge while on a familiarization tour of the Ministry, shortly after he was sworn-in as a member of the Cross River State Executive Council. He maintained that the present economic realities have challenged him to explore other avenues of financing government’s projects and programmes and will need staff of the Ministry to also rise up to this challenge. Ekpenyong enjoined staff of the Ministry to be open to embracing new approaches that will be adopted in the execution of tasks and warned them not to stick to approaches that throw up no positive results.
The commissioner also made it clear that he has taken up the challenge of working to ensure that the state grows to the level of fiscal autonomy where it should ideally rely no more on federal allocations to pay salaries and meet other financial commitments.
Earlier while conducting the commissioner round the Ministry, the Director of Administration, Ben Olom, said the Ministry is ready to support the commissioner achieve his set goals and appealed to him to empower them with the needed resource to enable him succeed.
Ekpenyong also met with some management staff of the Ministry to enable him assess the challenges and resources at his disposal, with the aim of fashioning out an execution plan for the tasks ahead.
