Delta State Executive Council (EXCO) has approved the 2021 supplementary budget draft of N66 billion.

The Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, disclosed this on Thursday evening while briefing newsmen after the State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa at Government House, Asaba.

He stated that EXCO also considered key areas in the 2022 appropriation bill and called on MDAs to reorder their estimates in line with critical focus of the proposed budget.

“Today at EXCO we considered the 2021 Supplementary Appropriation Bill of the state and we are proposing N66 billion to augment the 2021 budget.

“Now that it has been adopted we will proceed to take it to the State House of Assembly for appropriation.

“We discussed certain key areas of the 2022 budget with a view to coming up with priorities and so MDAs were asked to identify a number of the key areas.

“We are hoping that in a not too distant time we will come up with the full 2022 budget to be presented to the House,” Aniagwu added.

Aniagwu also said EXCO commenced a case-by-case consideration of the report of the judicial panel of enquiry on police brutality in the state.

He said EXCO had gone halfway with the consideration and would be completed in the next meeting.

“Today we commenced the consideration of the white paper on the outcome of the judicial panel of enquiry that was set up to look into the allegations bothering on police brutality which otherwise known as the ENDSARS protest.

“In that recommendation there were a number of issues as to what the police need to do and then also issues of compensation of families who may have lost their loved ones.

“We have gone halfway and we are hoping that in our next State EXCO meeting we will conclude consideration and adoption of the white paper,” Aniagwu said.

He added that EXCO also approved N946m counterpart funding for 2021 UBEC intervention to address critical educational infrastructure in the state.

On his part, Commissioner for Economic Planning, Dr Barry Pere-Gbe, said the Supplementary appropriation was in line with Section 151(4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“When you are introducing items that are not in the original budget, and some adjustments to some lines that already exist, you need to come up with budget amendment known as the Supplementary budget to the state House of Assembly.

“What we have done today is the first process of going to the House, we have to approve it at EXCO before taking it to the House.

“During the course of the year, we carried out budget performance review and we found out that the actuals by way of revenue fell below what the estimates were for eight months period from January to August, 2021.

“In that scenario if the revenue can’t fund the expenditure profile it is only reasonable that you look at some form of adjustments and that is why we had to reorder the budget by reprioritizing our expenditure profile,” he stated.

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