The Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadri Mohammed, on Tuesday, presented a budget of N213 billion for the 2021 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly for consideration.
Tagged, “Budget of Consolidation”, the budget, as presented by the governor on the floor of the Assembly, is N46 billion higher than the N167 billion present for the 2020 fiscal year.
Presenting the budget to the lawmakers for legislative action, the governor informed that the N213,914,559,428 estimates consists of N93,197,307,970 as recurrent expenditure, representing 44 percent of the budget and N120,717,251458 capital expenditure, which is 56 percent of the budget.
Governor Mohammed further informed that the budget was predicated on the national assumptions of oil production, oil price benchmark, exchange rate of Naira to US dollar and a robust and efficient system of internally generated revenue collection.
According to him, the state government would finance the budget through recurrent revenue estimates of N180 billion and capital receipts of N105 billion.
Reviewing the 2020 budget performance, the governor declared that a number of challenges were faced in the implementation of 2020 budget, saying that these led to the downward review of the budget to N129 billion due to dwindling revenues caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic, the governor submitted, stagnated not only the state economy but also the world economy in all ramifications.
He, however, noted that despite these challenges, his administration was able to record moderate success in the implementation of the 2020 budget.
“Out of the budgeted revenue, including excess crude of N61 billion, only the sum of N34 billion was realised as at 30th September, 2020.
“In the same vein, value-added tax revenue recorded a performance of N13 billion against the budgeted figure of N18 billion. This is a clear indication of budget performance in the midst of budget uncertainty and challenges.
“Independent revenue generation was also high as the sum of N13 billion was realised against the budgeted figure of N21 billion as at 30th September, 2020,” he informed.
In his remarks, the Speaker, Honourable Suleiman Abubakar, said that the Assembly in the discharge of its function during the last legislative period, passed 20 bills, made 44 motions, 40 resolutions, listened to 28 petitions, received 16 committee reports and 18 messages from the governor.
The speaker stated that for the first time in the history of the Assembly, its Public Account Committee invited so many ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) over the annual Auditor-General reports.
Abubakar then assured that the lawmakers would do justice to the proposed 2021 budget and informed that they would allow the budget to undergo second reading immediately, following which it would be sent to the House Appropriation Committee for further legislative action.
