Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State, Tuesday presented the 2021 budget proposal of N122 billion and Appropriation Bill of the State Government to the Ebonyi State House of Assembly.
The budget which is tagged: “Budget of Stabilization and Consolidation in a Recession” placed the recurrent estimate to be 40% of the total budget.
Making his presentation at the hallow Chamber of the State House of Assembly, Nkaliki, the Governor noted that financing of the budget “is expected to come from Federation Account estimated at about N52bn or 42.33% of the budget” as the state government was “projecting to increase our IGR from projected N10,569,074,353.56 in 2020 budget to N12,858,297,657.83 or 10.47% of our total expected revenue.
“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% of the total budget.
“May I, therefore, Mr Speaker, with respect to this Honourable House and with humility and faith in God; today 15th December 2020 present to you for your kind evaluation and necessary approval, our 2021 budget estimate in the sum of One Hundred and Twenty Two Billion, Eight Hundred and Fifty Two Million, and Forty-Five Thousand, Two Hundred and Twenty-Two Naira, Forty-Nine Kobo (N122, 852,045,222.49) tagged “Budget of Stabilization and Consolidation in a Recession.”
“In 2020, our projected actual revenue receipts by Dec, 31st 2020 is N122,138,799,059.13 which is 92.53% performance. We are therefore staying on side of what is possible by our 2021 budget of N122,852,045,222.49 which is just 0.6% higher than our projected 2020 budget performance.
“Our recurrent expenditure is projected at N49.141bn which is 40% of our total budget. This amount is about N15.11bn above the projected recurrent expenditure by 2020 Dec. 31st major increase in recurrent expenditure is from social sector especially health and education which account for over 34.7% of our total budget.
“Our Capital expenditure estimate here is N73.711bn which is 60% of our total budget and N5.95bn over the projected actual for 2020 by Dec. 31st. This increase in the amount is due to our 2021 target of completing most of our on-going projects
“On human capital development and empowerment, the Governor gave a budget proposal of over N3b , that is, 2.65% of the total budget
“We have a budget of N3,259,779,838.94 or 2.65% of the total budget. Out of this amount, we intend to deploy N3bn as ENDSARS empowerment programme for our youths and women.
“This programme has commenced with a collation of names and the proposals of their choices of businesses. We intend to reach out to about 250 persons with best proposals per Local Government Area with N1m per person (per business).
“We encourage the Ministry to partner with Bank of Industry to increase the participants’ scope of businesses and capital involved. With expected 80% success of this program. We believe that Ebonyi will be more focused on business than in politics. This programme is non-political.”
“Under the Ministry of Health and other Health related programmes “We have budgeted the sum of N18,706,279,929.28 or 15.23% of our total budget for Health related matters.
In 2021, we intend to complete the EBSU Medical School and deploy the school. We will complete the 14 General Hospitals.
“In 2021, we have budgeted 19.47% of our total budget or N23,913,778,152.08 to Education.
“Our Government believes that the best thing to give to the society is education. We will ensure that in 2021, no child of Ebonyi State is without education.
“We will pursue the training of our teachers with more incentives. We will continue to improve the quality of our schools’ infrastructure and learning materials.
“We will conduct a visitation programme to our State University and College of Education with the sole aim of improving the quality of education and the welfare of staff and students. Education in 2021 has the highest budget of the State.
“Ministry of Works and Transport has a budget of N9,206,693,563.56 or 7.49% of the total budget. We intend to complete all on-going projects before starting new ones.
“The completion of flyovers bridges, dualization of Abakaliki to Enugu and Abakaliki to Afikpo, the Iyere flyover bridge in Afikpo South LGA, the completion of the remaining 16km out of 31km of Ntezi–Agba–Isu road in Ishielu and Onicha LGAs will be our focus. All the on-going projects in all the LGAs will be completed in 2021.
“Under this Ministry, Infrastructural Development for Convention, we are developing the airport and few other infrastructures. We have opened bids for the airport equipment and we hope to mobilize the contractor this December 2021.
“Other major works of the airport that will be completed in 2021 include the earthworks, parks, terminal building, and concrete works of the 4km by 65m of the runway.
“We hope to open the airport for business latest by June 2022. The budget here is, therefore, N14,012,217,549.64 or 11.41% of the total budget.
“The total budget for these major MDA in line with our focus for 2021 is a total of N69bn or 56.24% of the budget.
“We have a total budget for Covid-19 cares and Responses to be N21,212,326,544.04 or 17.27% of the total; budget. Most elements of the Covid-19 crisis are based mostly in the budget of Ministry of Health while the Covid-19 responses budget are those programmes initiated by the State Government to cushion the adverse effects of covid-19 and resuscitate the economy.
“We have projected a monthly repayment of all our internal loans to be N568,120,478.25 or 0.46% of our total budget.
“We are repaying these loans at the rate of about N50, 000, 000.00 per month.
For emphasis, my government since 2015 has not obtained any foreign loan as being speculated by my detractors. The only loan we will obtain in 2021 is the AFDB loan of $150,000,000.00 to construct concrete road pavement of over 199 kilometers of Abakaliki Ring road, which will pass through 8-Local Government Areas of Ebonyi North and Central Senatorial zones.
“Be it therefore known to all especially our dear detractors that we are not owing any bank other than Central Bank of Nigeria/Commercial Bank loans which are common to all the 36 states of Nigeria and that we do not owe any contractor other than retention fees which is less than Five Hundred Million Naira (N500,000,000.00) to date.
“In our zero oil initiatives, we shall promote self-reliance and robust economy through socioeconomic diversification that will reduce reliance on Federal allocation and encourage local content in our domestic economy and ultimately increase the income base through internally generated revenue.
“We shall secure the future of Ebonyi children through education and public and private sector expansion to stimulate economic growth, stability and sustainability, and thus drive towards poverty alleviation, and self-sufficiency in food production through massive agricultural revolution that will involve all Ebonyians.
“We shall sustain the development and rehabilitation of various categories of critical socio-economic infrastructure to aid the delivery of basic services and encourage entrepreneurship and industrialization. We shall raise the capacity of the workforce, the artisans, the craftsmen, the technicians and our young age through formal, semi-formal and non-formal education.”