By Bamigbola Gbolagunte, Akure
Ondo State Governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu yesterday presented #159 billion budget proposal for 2021 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly for approval.
The budget, which is tagged ‘Budget of Hope’ is a little bit higher than 2020 budget, which was N187 billion before it was reviewed downward to N151 billion in September because of economic effects caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
Represented by Mr Emmanuel Igbasan, the state Commisioner for Budget and Planning, Akeredolu said that the recurrent expediture was N103. 022 billion while the capital expediture estimate would gulp N56.267 billion.
Akeredolu said that the projected spending was made up of expectations of N34.413 billion from Statutory Allocation, N11.584 billion from Mineral Derivation, N12.926 billion from Value Added Tax, N28.581 billion from Internal Revenue, N12.501 billion from grants, N42.072 billion from other capital receipts and N18.719 billion.
He said a total of N103.022 billion has been budgeted for recurrent expenditure in the fiscal year, while salary and wages is put at N42,227,913,104.57 billion.
According to him “the breakdown of capital expenditure estimate on sectoral basis is: Administration Sector is N6,727,054,724.80 billion which is 11.85 per cent. Economic Sector is N32,448,473,194.07 billion which is 57.15 per cent.
Law and Justice Sector is N1,219,000,000.00 billion which is 2.15 percent and the social Sector is N16,379,604,348.52 which is 28.85 per cent.”
He said the financial projection is predicated on some of the assumption contained in the 2021-2023 medium term expenditure framework document of the state.
Akeredolu explained that the major objective of the 2021 estimate was the consolidation of the modest gain of the last three and half years by the delivery of most the ongoing projects in the state.
The governor noted that the current economic reality was an indication that the government must consciously and pragmatically rearrange its fiscal priorities to target the growth drivers of its economy.
Speaking, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr Bamidele Oloyelogun thanked the governor for successfully transmitting the budget and for his attention towards all sectors of the state.
Oloyelogun described the governor as a hallmark of good leadership that was committed to the development of the state.
He promised that the assembly would do justice to every content of the budget.