The Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello has presented the estimate of N151,240,621,776.00 for the 2021 fiscal year
The proposed budget estimated at N151,240,621,776.00 is 2.71 per cent lower than the 2020 Budget of N155, 459,814,701.
The 2021 budget is titled ‘Budget of Prioritized Realities’.
The Governor who is currently in self-isolation due to his infection to COVID-19 spoke through his Deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Ketso.
The 2021 proposed budget estimate is made up of N72,503,201,830 representing 47.94 per cent as a recurrent estimate and N78,737,419,945 representing 52.06 per cent of the budget size as a capital estimate.
According to him, the 2021 budget proposal was reached against the background of lessons learnt in the outgoing year 2020, saying, the proposal is as realistic as possible.
According to Ketso, the budget is to be financed through the Statutory Allocation from the Federation Account, Value Added Tax, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and Capital Receipts.
He stated, “Out of the N151,240,621,776 proposed budget, N71,955,049,902.00 or 47.58 per cent is expected to accrue from the Federation Account, N17, 999,524,715 representing 11.91per cent from Value-Added Tax, while N14,744,770,399.00 or 9.74 per cent is to be generated internally.
“The sum of N42,201,250,249 representing 27.90 per cent of the budget is expected as Capital Receipt from Development Partners, Grants, Loans among others.
“Other expected revenue sources include Dividends from North-South Power N500,000,000.00, refund from National Electricity Liability Company (NELCO) N3,510,026,517.00 and refund from Federal Roads N330,000,000.00 which account for 0.33 per cent, 2.32 per cent, and 0.22 per cent respectively.”
Ketso explained that the Proposed Recurrent Expenditure is put at N72,503,201,830 which is 3.63 per cent slightly higher than the 2020 Original Budget.
“For the recurrent expenditure, personnel cost will gulp N38,277,834,620, leave grant will take N2,015,869,500, overhead cost is at N16,089,500,000 while consolidated funds charges will be N16,119,998,128.”
He further said the increment in the personnel and overhead costs is as a result of the implementation of N30, 000.00 new minimum wages and the backlog of promotions, annual salary increments and payment of pension and gratuity entitlements to retired civil servants who have meritoriously served the State.

The Deputy Governor then said that the year 2020 was very turbulent and came with increased security challenges, banditry, kidnapping, the recent #EndSARS protests among others, saying, “All these impacted negatively on our plans in the year under review.”
