Bayelsa: Finishing strong on development, stability and prosperity

The 2018 budget estimates of Bayelsa State is unique for the simple reason that it encapsulates the first step of Governor Henry Seriake Dickson’s pragmatic approach to the development of the state in the last two years of his second tenure and has a capital vote component that is about 50 percent of the total budget figure.

Christened ‘Finishing Strong on Development, Stability and Prosperity 1’, it gives an insight into how the state government aims to tackle the various developmental challenges which the governor identified as “critical areas that our government planned as foundation for the greatness of our state.”

The 2018 Budget estimates of N295.2 billion therefore addresses many of the critical issues in these areas which include education, healthcare, economic expansion, agriculture, tourism and investment in infrastructure by allocating appropriate funds for various signature projects.

As Governor Dickson noted while presenting the budget estimates to the state House of Assembly, the year 2017 was a groundbreaking year and very challenging due to the state of the national economy and poor earnings, but Bayelsa State was able to move on to very solid ground.

The revenue projections for the total 2018 budget of N295,203,033,453.00 (an increase of N73.923 billion or 33.41 percent over the N221.28 billion 2017 budget) are statutory allocation of N200,009,320,110.00 or 67.75 percent, value added tax (VAT) of N8,506,137,593.00 or 2.88 percent, internally generated revenue (IGR) of N24,000,000,000 or 8.13 percent and capital receipts of N62,687,575,750 or 21.24 percent.

Recurrent expenditure is put at N146.616 billion which is N11.656 billion more than the 2017 figure of N136.96 billion: of the amount, personnel cost would gulp N48,015,849,073 or 16.27 percent of the budget, overhead cost is estimated at N42,576,004,000 or 14.42 percent, consolidated revenue fund charges of N58,024,000,000 or 19.66 percent while capital expenditure is N146,587,180,380 or 49.66 percent, which is an increase of 73.85 percent over the N84.317 billion capital vote for 2017.

What this indicates is that the state government would expend nearly half of the budget on infrastructure, which is a shift towards acceptable global budgetary practice unlike in the past when recurrent expenditure took more than a fair share of the annual budgets.

However, of the N58,024,000,000 budgeted for consolidated revenue fund charges, payment of pensions and gratuities would take N6,000,000,000, public debt charges, N24,000,000,000, transfer to G32 or rural development authorities is N3,510,000,000, transfer to local government pension board, N514,000,000 and others including deductions by FAAC to the tune of N24,000,000,000.

From the above, pensioners in the state have cause to smile as it is easily deducible that the government of Governor Dickson is set to meet its obligations to pensioners as a whooping N6.0 billion is being earmarked for the payment pension and gratuities to civil servants with another component of N3.51 billion and N514 million going to the G32 and LG Pension Board respectively.

It must also be noted that the state government is set to loose so much to FAAC deductions which stand at an estimated N24 billion: these include the deductions for the N50 billion loan, over payments of 13 percent derivation to other states, deductions for foreign loans and commercial agricultural schemes among others.

However, the most exciting aspect of the budget is its huge capital outlay of N146.59 billion which is being earmarked to fund major capital projects including roads, schools, hospitals and other projects in the tourism, power, agriculture and trade and industry.

Over the past few years, the state government has taken strong steps to advance the three senatorial roads from Nembe to Brass in the east, Yenagoa to Oporoma in the Central Senatorial District and from Sagbama to Ekeremor, which is the first stretch of the Sagbama-Ekeremor-Agge road in the West Senatorial District.

The road from Nembe to Brass looks the most challenging of the three as almost all of it would be through marshy mangrove forests for a distance of over 40 kilometres and as Dickson told the lawmakers, the government has “reached tentative agreements with some of its development partners and intends to bring all of them for final meetings” to begin the award process this year.

On the Yenagoa-Oporoma road, the target is to get to Oporoma while at the western flank, the effort is to take the road to Ekeremor by the end of the year; and all these as well as improvement of the internal road network in the capital, Yenagoa in addition to completion of some key signature road projects such as the Isaac Boro Expressway which are of great importance.

There is also the International Cargo Airport which is expected to receive its first commercial flight this year and the preliminary works on the very critical Agge Deep Seaport project where the Army Engineering Corps have done initial survey taking the allocation for works and infrastructure to N36.641 billion.

Aside infrastructure, another area that is critical to the state government is education where over N50 billion has been expended in the past six years and is witnessing iconic model secondary schools, constituency schools and tertiary institutions which are changing the narrative in the state.

The free education policy is now firmly rooted and over 5,000 students are “receiving free, compulsory and qualitative education” at no cost to their parents and guardians, the Foundation School of the University of Africa has graduated its first set of students and all is now set for the degree programmes to commence at the university.

A state owned polytechnic is also set to take off and Governor Dickson said the polytechnic “is to undertake training and manpower development at the low and middle level, and promote entrepreneurship, self development and ultimately prosperity in our future leaders.”