Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State on Wednesday slashed the State’s 2020 budget by 26 percent, on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The governor announced a reduction of the planned budget to N131.847bn from N178.366bn.
Umahi who announced this in Abakaliki the State capital during public participation (citizens’ input/ consultation on the revised 2020 budget, said in the review of budget, the state increased the budget of some sectors like health, education and Agriculture with some percentages.
The Governor explained that some Ministries, Agencies, Departments and Parastatals’ budgets would be cut because of the pandemic, the fall in oil price and volume, the decline in internally generated revenue, among others.
“In doing this, we have made some proposals in our review which we want to publish on different segments of our state to review to enable us finalize the process of revising the budget and its presentation to the House of Assembly for approval.
“In our revised budget proposal, health increased. So, health that has 9.18% has increased by 8.13% which means that health is coming to about 18% of our revised budget.
“Education also increased by 1.3%, Agriculture by .25%, Infrastructure by 2.6% ,and Works went down by 16.74% .So, what we have done here is what is called opportunity cost.
“Some MDAs budget will have to go down and then those essential services that we intend to bring especially in the fight against COVID-19 both the crisis management and the recovery had to come up and that’s why you see health coming up largest and you see education also coming up because we have elements of crisis managing in education.
“And so, we have proposed a budget of N131.847bn against the approved budget of N178.366bn. So, we are here before you with a budget review proposal that has the size of 26% reduction. We are reducing our approved budget of N178bn by 26%”.
The Governor used the opportunity to state that he would finish all his projects before the end of his tenure.
On the alarming rate of rape in the country, Umahi said the state shall review laws of the State to protect women and children, noting that rape suspects have always been arrested and released on bail, an act he described as worrisome.
