The Governor of Niger State, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has presented a N151.2 billion budget for the 2021 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.
This was as the Health sector gets the highest with N7,337,519,382.00 billion, which will be largely used as capital provision for the upgrading of General and Rural Hospitals.
The 2021 Budget of N151,240,621,776.00, which is tagged: “Budget of Prioritise Reality,” is 2.71 per cent lower than the original 2020 Budget of N155,459,814,701.00
According to the Governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Ketso: “The 2021 proposed budget estimate is made up of N72,503,201,830.88, representing 47.94 per cent as Recurrent Estimate, and N78,737,419,945.12, representing 52.06 per cent of the budget size as Capital Estimates.
He said on Thursday while presenting the Budget at the State House of Assembly that it is to be financed through the usual traditional sources of Statutory Allocation from Federation Account, Value Added Tax, Internally Generated Revenue and Capital Receipts.
Furthermore, he said: “Out of the N151,240,621,776.00 Proposed Budget, N71,955,049,902.00 or 47.58 per cent is expected to accrue from the Federation Account, N17, 999,524,715.00, representing 11.91 per cent, from Value-Added Tax, while N14,744,770,399.00 or 9.74 per cent is to be generated internally.
“The sum of N42,201,250,249.00 representing 27.90% of the budget is expected as Capital Receipt from Development Partners, Grants, Loans among others.
“Other expected revenue sources include: Dividends from North-South Power N500,000,000.00, Refund from National Electricity Liability Company N3,510,026,517.00 and Refund from Federal Roads N330,000,000.00 which account for 0.33%, 2.32% and 0.22% respectively.”
The Economic Sector, according to the Governor, has the highest allocation of N54.257 billion or 68.90%, followed by the Social Sector with N16.084 billion or 20.42 per cent and Administrative Sector with 9.02 per cent or N7.095 billion.
The Law and Justice Sector has a proposed estimate of N1.3 billion.
Bello however lamented that the year 2020 has been tough on almost all fronts “from the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease nicknamed COVID-19 to the most recent protest that engulfed the nation with its attendant catastrophe. Indeed, the impact of the Pandemic affected almost all governments in all the nations of the World”.
In his remarks the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abdullahi Bawa Wuse, assured that the lawmakers will ensure the Budget is scrutinised and given speedy passage.
