Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, on Tuesday presented the 2021 budget estimates of N153, 403,890,93,06billion to the State House of Assembly.
Obaseki, who christened the budget ,”Make Edo Great Again” said it is 9.7 percent higher than the 2020 revised budget of N139.8 billion.
He said the budget estimates is made up of capital expenditure estimates of N94.8 billion and N58.6billion for capital expenditure.
The governor, who said the recurrent expenditure of the 2021 fiscal year budget proposal was higher than the capital expenditure noted that it would help to build on the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the budget would be financed from N71billion of the Federation Account, N36 billion from the Internal Generated Revenue (IGR), N9.8 billion from Aids and Grants, N15.3 billion from loans, N13.8 billion from Capital Development Fund Receipts and N7.5billion balance of the 2020 fiscal year.
He explained that the projected N71billion receipt from the Federation Account is reflective of a 23 percent increase in the price per barrel of crude currently trading at a price of $28 per barrel in 2020.
Obaseki, who opined that the 70 percent of the N9.8 billion expected during the fiscal year is a stimulus to reinvigorate the state economy, as a result of the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, added that 30 percent of the balance are grants targeted at basic and technical education sectors.
“The N15.3 billion loan receipts are credit lines from the World Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), targeted development projects in the agriculture, education and rural development sectors.
“The total loan size is well within the 15 percent fiscal deficit ceiling prescribed by the Federal government”,he said.
He assured that his administration has put structures in place to ensure that the fiscal deficit established in the budget is below the recommended deficit ceiling in order to ensure a positive solvency position for the government.
He gave the sectoral breakdown of the budget to include, N8.7 billion for administration, N36.7billion for economic, N12.9billion to the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST) programme, N12.7billion for social sector, N450million for Law and Justice.
The sum of N14.8 billion was allocated to roads and transport infrastructure, N8.8 billion for physical, urban and region planning and N7.6 billion for other economic growth and employment enablers.
The sum of N3.9billion and N6.4 billion was allocated for health and education respectively.
