BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
GOVERNOR David Umahi of Ebonyi State has presented a budget estimate of N122, 852, 045, 222.49 to the state House of Assembly for 2021.
The budget, according to Governor Umahi, is 0.6 per cent higher than the projected 2020 budget performance, and is tagged Budget of Stabilisation and Consolidation in a Recession.
According to him, the major revenue is expected to come from Federal Allocation while other revenue heads are expected to come from sales of international market stores, land proceeds, sales of malls and other receipts.
The Governor also projected 10.47 per cent increase in the internally generated revenue, from N10,569,074,353.56 in the 2020 budget to N12,858,297,657.83, representing 10.47 per cent of the total expected revenue.
Umahi said, “Our major revenue is expected to come from Federation Account, estimated at about N52bn or 42.33 per cent of the budget. Other revenue heads like IGR, sales of international market stores, land proceeds, sales of malls, other receipts, etc, will account for the balance of N57.994bn or 47.53 per cent of total budget.
“We are projecting to increase our IGR from projected N10,569,074,353.56 in the 2020 budget to N12,858,297,657.83 or 10.47 per cent of our total expected revenue.
“In 2020, our projected actual revenue receipts by December 31 2020, is N122,138,799,059.13, which is 92.53 per cent performance. We are therefore staying on the side of what is possible by our 2021 budget of N122,852,045,222.49, which is just 0.6 per cent higher than our projected 2020 budget performance.”
In the budget breakdown, Human capital Development and Empowerment will gulp N3,259,779,838.94 or 2.65 per cent of the total budget. The amount was intended to deploy N3bn as ENDSARS empowerment programme for youths and women.
The Governor said that the programme had commenced with the collation of names and proposals of businesses.
According to him, he intends to reach out to about 250 persons with best proposals per Local Government Area with N1m per person (per business).
The Ministry of Health and Health Related Programs got the sum of N18,706,279,929.28 or 15.23 per cent of the total budget for Health related matters.
The Education sector got a total amount of N23,913,778,152.08, while the Ministry of Works and Transport got a budget of N9,206,693,563.56 or 7.49 per cent of the total budget, among others.
