Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, has presented a budget estimate of N275.8 billion to the state House of Assembly for deliberation and approval for 2019 fiscal year
The budget is N41.1 billion less than the N316.9billion budgeted the previous fiscal year.
Similarly, his Ekiti State counterpart, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, yesterday, presented a sum of N129.924, 472,135.01 appropriation bill before the State House of Assembly for passage.The budget composed of N57, 214, 891, 758.72 capital expenditure and N72, 709, 580, 376.29 as recurrent expenditure.
In the budget, tagged, ‘Budget of Restoration,’ infrastructure takes the largest share and will gulp a sum of N40, 122, 788, 579. 83 while a total of N33, 393, 440, 901.80 was earmarked for social investment drives.Presenting the budget, christened, ‘Budget of Final Completion,’ to the state Assembly, Dickson assured that focus would placed on completing most of the on-going projects before his administration comes to an end in February 2020.
He said the budget proposal consists of statutory allocation of N233.5 billion representing 84 per cent of the total budget and value added tax of N9.7 billion or 3.55 per cent adding that other revenue projections comprised of internally generated revenue of N16.7 billion representing 6.7 per cent, and capital receipts of N15.6 billion or five per cent of the total budget.
Dickson listed the proposed expenditure to include, personnel cost of N47 billion (17.1 per cent), overhead cost N49 billion or 17.79 per cent, consolidated revenue fund charges N66 billion or 23.49 per cent.
The governor, who said the capital expenditure was allocated a lion share of N113.5 billion representing 41.16 per cent, put the performance rate of the 2018 budget at 50 per cent as government received N153 billion out of the budgeted N316 billion.On sectoral allocation, the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure gets N31 billion, which is the highest followed by Education, N23 billion, while N6 billion is earmarked for Health.
On his part, Fayemi praised the assembly for the commitment to the state, saying the objective of the budget estimate is to drive the four cardinal objectives of his administration, anchored on knowledge economy, social investment, infrastructure and human capital development and agriculture and rural development.He said the budget was judiciously tailored towards good governance and speedy economic recovery for state and its people.
Fayemi said the appropriation bill benefitted immensely from the inputs of all relevant stakeholders as it reflected the collective aspirations, needs and demands for sustainable growth and development across the 16 councils of the state.
