Ortom proposes N132.5b budget draft to Assembly

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State on Thursday proposed a budget eatrimate of N132.5billion for 2021 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.
People’s Daily observed that the 2021 budget is N23.7billion higher than the 2020 revised budget of N108.8billion.
Ortom while presenting the N132,592,041,310.00 estimate before the lawmakers intimated that of the amount, a N20billion would be expended on health and food security in the context of COVID-19.
He said that the 2021 budget christened, ‘Budget of Resilience’ took into consideration the need to strengthen the resilience of Benue people and the state as it seeks to recover from the global, national and sub-national economic and pandemic crises.
The governor disclosed that the Economic sector takes the highest share of N51.3billion followed by the Social sector with the sum of N44.5billion and the Administrative sector got N33.8billion while the Law and Justice sector has the lowest share of N2.8billion.
He added that, the Recurrent expenditure stood at N90,8billion while N49.3billion was earmarked for Personnel cost as Overhead cost got a share of N41.4 billion and Capital expenditure was pegged at 41.7billon.
It cod be recalled that the State’s Assembly had earlier passed the State’s Appropriation Bill of N190.8billion for the 2020 fiscal year which was later this year pruned to N108.8billion following the COVID-18 pandemic.
Receiving the estimated budget, Speaker of the House, Titus Uba, assured that the House would ensure speedy passage of the budget as he appealed for cooperation of his members and the various MDAs to achieve success.
Uba however remarked that the presentation of the 2021 estimate was early enough for good preparation that may otherwise mitigate against any unforeseen economic disasters.