By CHARLES IWUOHA

Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. Dave Umahi, on Tuesday presented the 2021 Appropriation Bill of N122,852,045,22.49 to Ebonyi State House of Assembly.

Tagged “Budget of Stabilization and Consolidation in a Recession”, major revenue is expected to come from the Federal Allocation while other revenue heads are expected to come from sales of international market stores, land proceeds, sales of malls and other receipts.

The Governor also projected 10.47 percent increase of the internally generated revenue from N10,569,074,353.56 in 2020 budget to N12,858,297,657.83 representing 10.47 percent of the total expected revenue.

Umahi said: “Our major revenue is expected to come from Federation Account estimated at about N52bn or 42.33% of the budget. Other revenue heads like IGR, sales of international market stores, land proceeds, sales of malls, other receipts etc will account for the balance of N57.994bn or 47.53% of total budget. We are projecting to increase our IGR from projected N10,569,074,353.56 in 2020 budget to N12,858,297,657.83 or 10.47% of our total expected revenue.

“In 2020, our projected actual revenue receipts by Dec, 31st 2020 is N122,138,799,059.13 which is 92.53% performance. We are therefore staying on side of what is possible by our 2021 budget of N122,852,045,222.49 which is just 0.6% higher than our projected 2020 budget performance.”

In the budget breakdown, Human capital Development and Empowerment will gulp N3,259,779,838.94 or 2.65% of the total budget. The amount was intended to deploy N3bn as ENDSARS empowerment programme for youths and women.

The Governor said that the programme has commenced with collation of names and their proposals of their choices of businesses and he intends to reach out to about 250 persons with best proposals per Local Government Area with N1m per person (per business).

The Ministry of Health and Health Related Programs got the e sum of N18,706,279,929.28 or 15.23% of the total budget for Health related matters.

The Education sector got the total amount of N23,913,778,152.08, while the Ministry of Works and Transport got the budget of N9,206,693,563.56 or 7.49% of the total budget.

Umahi noted that the budget was intended to complete all on-going projects before starting new ones, the completion of flyovers bridges, dualization of Abakaliki to Enugu and Abakaliki to Afikpo, the Iyere flyover bridge in Afikpo South LGA, the completion of the remaining 16km out of 31km of Ntezi Agba Isu road in Ishielu and Onicha LGAs will be the focus.

Umahi said: “Under the Ministry of Infrastructures for Concession, we were developing the airport and few other infrastructures. We have opened bids for the airport equipment and we hope to mobilise the contractor this December 2021. Other major works of the airport that will be completed in 2021 include the earth works, parks, terminal building, and concrete works of the 4km by 65m of the runway. We hope to open the airport for business latest by June 2022. The budget here is therefore N14,012,217,549.64 or 11.41% of the total budget”.

“The total budget for these major MDA in line with our focus for 2021 is a total of N69bn or 56.24% of the budget. We have a total budget for Covid-19 cares and Responses to be N21,212,326,544.04 or 17.27% of the total; budget.”

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