From; Segun Babatunde in Bauchi (15/12/2020)
The Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadri Mohammed on Tuesday presented a budget of N213 billion for the 2021 fiscal year to the House of Assembly for consideration.
The proposal was N46 billion higher than the N167 billion “Budget of Renewal of hope” for 2020.
Christened “Budget of Consolidation” Governor Mohammed told the legislators that the 213,914,559,428 estimates comprised of N93,197,307,970 billion, representing 44 percent recurrent expenditure and N120,717,251458 billion capital expenditure, representing 56 percent.
According to the Governor, the budget has been predicated on the National assumption on oil production, benchmark oil price, exchange rate of Naira to US dollar and a robust and efficient system of internally generated revenue collection.
He said that the budget is to be financed by recurrent revenue estimates of N180 billion, and capital receipts of N105 billion, lamenting that a number of challenges were faced in the implementation of 2020 budget which led to the downward review of the budget to N129 billion due to dwindling revenue as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, which stagnated the world economy in all it’s ramifications.
According to him, “Despite these challenges, we were able to record moderate success in the implementation of the 2020 budget. Out of the budgeted revenue, included excess crude of 61 billion, only the sum of 34 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.Indepedent 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 said
In his address at the occasion, the Speaker Bauchi House of Assembly, Honourable Suleiman Abubakar said that the house in the discharge of it’s function during the last legislative period, passed 20 bills, made 44 motions, 40 resolutions, listened to 28 petitions, received 16 Commitee reports and 18 messages from the governor, adding that for the first time in the history of the house, the Public Account Commitee has invited so many MDAs with regards to the Annual Auditor General reports.
He assured that the assembly will do justice to the proposed 2021 budget as provided by the law, adding that the house will allow the budget to undergo second reading immediately and commit it to the Appropriation Committee for further legislative action. END