Abubakar Sani-Bello, the governor of Niger State on Thursday, November 12, 2020, presented a proposal of N151,240,621,776 billion for the 2021 budget.
The budget is titled ‘Budget of Prioritised Realities’.
The Governor, who is in isolation after contracting COVID-19, was represented by his Deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Ketso.
The proposed 2021 budget, which is estimated at N151,240,621,776, is 2.71 per #cent lower than the original 2020 budget of N155, 459,814,701.
The 2021 proposed budget estimate is made up of N72,503,201,830 representing 47.94 percent as a recurrent estimate and N78,737,419,945 representing 52.06 percent of the budget size as a capital estimate.
The Deputy Governor explained the 2021 budget proposal is arrived at against the background of lessons learnt in 2020, adding the proposal is as realistic as possible.
According to Ketso, the budget is to be financed through the usual traditional sources of Statutory Allocation from Federation Account, Value Added Tax, Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, and Capital Receipts.
“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 percent 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 percent, 2.32 percent, and 0.22 percent respectively,” he stated.
The Deputy Governor further said that the 2021 Proposed Recurrent expenditure is put at N72,503,201,830 which is 3.63 percent slightly higher than the 2020 Original Budget.
For the recurrent expenditure, personnel cost will gulp N38,277,834,620, leave grant will take N2,015,869,500, overhead cost is at N16,089,500,000 while consolidated funds charges N16,119,998,128 .
The Deputy Governor said that the increment in the personnel and overhead costs is as a result of the implementation of N30, 000.00 new minimum wages and the backlog of promotions, annual salary increments, and payment of pension and gratuity entitlements to retired civil servants who have meritoriously served the State.
He then said that the year 2020 was very turbulent and came with increased security challenges, banditry, kidnapping, the recent #EndSARS protests among others saying, “All these impacted negatively on our plans in the year under review.”
