By Ahmed Attahir, Gusau
Governor Bello Mohammed of Zamfara state on Thursday, presented 2021 budget proposal of N145,438,751,000,00 to the House of Assembly.
The governor expressed worry that many families had lost their means of livelihood and many households who were well-to-do had been pushed into hunger and poverty.
“Most of the economic crises in the past only affected the supply side but COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the demand and supply side.
“On the government side, there is a steep decline in the revenues, while at the same there is an additional burden of providing safety kits to prevent the spread of the virus, building coronavirus healing centres, and provision of palliative,” he said.
“The budget has carefully taken into account the state of the economy and therefore places greater emphasis on the continuation of the many projects and programmes started in 2020”.
According to him, in the 2021 fiscal year, the proposed budget is 14.2% higher than the revised budget of last year.
“It gives emphasis to completion of all the on-going projects and programmes with some considerations on the new ones. The proposed budget is balanced as the projected revenue equals the estimated expenditure.
“The proposal is based on the projected recurrent and capital revenues of N77,151,251,000.00 and N68,287,500,000.00 for the year, respectively”.
He maintained that out of the N145,438,751,000.00 proposed estimate, the sum of N64,393,751,000.00 was earmarked for recurrent expenditure, while the sum of N81,045,000,000.00 was dedicated to capital expenditure in the state.
