…Economic sector gets highest allocation
By Tina George, Minna
Niger state Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello on Thursday, presented the 2021 Appropriation Bill of N151,240,621,776.00 to the State Assembly.
Tagged ‘Budget of Prioritized Realities’, the Bill was presented by the Deputy Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Ketso.
Recall that Governor Sani-Bello is in isolation having tested positive for COVID-19.
The proposed 2021 Budget, which is estimated at N151.2 billion is 2.71 per cent lower than the 2020 budget of N155.4 billion.
The Deputy Governor disclosed that the economic sector has the highest allocation of N54.257 billion, which is 68.90 per cent of the budget.
“This is followed by the social sector with N16.084 billion or 20.42 per cent and the administrative sector with N7.095 billion or 9.02 per cent while the law and justice sector has the lowest allocation with a proposed estimate of N1.3 billion.”
Ketso explained that the 2021 proposed budget estimate is made up of N72,503,201,830 representing 47.94 per cent as a recurrent estimate and N78,737,419,945 representing 52.06 per cent of the budget size as a capital estimate.
He added that the 2021 budget proposal is built on the lesson learned in the outgoing year 2020 stressing that the proposal is as realistic as possible.
On how the budget would be sourced, he said, “Out of the N151,240,621,776 proposed budget, N71,955,049,902.00 or 47.58 per cent is expected to accrue from the Federation Account, N17, 999,524,715 representing 11.91per 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 representing 27.90 per cent 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 (NELCO) N3,510,026,517.00 and refund from Federal Roads N330,000,000.00 which account for 0.33 per cent, 2.32 per cent, and 0.22 per cent respectively.”
Ketso stated that the year 2020 has been tough on almost all fronts pointing out challenges faced by the country and states from the outbreak of COVID-19 to the most recent protest that engulfed the nation with its attendant catastrophe.
“The year 2020 in its turbulence came with increased security challenges, banditry, kidnapping, the recent #EndSARS protests among others. All these impacted negatively on our plans in the year under review.”
