Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa.
The Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson yesterday proposed a budget estimate of N295.5bn to the House of Assembly for the year, 2018.
The budgetary proposal, tagged, ‘Finishing Strong on Development, Stability and Prosperity Phase 1’, showed a great improvement on infrastructure expenditure, as the state government planned to spend more on capital projects than recurrent.
Dickson proposed to spend N146.6bn (50 per cent) on infrastructure; N48bn (16.27 per cent) on personnel, N42.6bn (14.42 per cent) on overhead and consolidated revenue fund charges of N58bn (19.6 per cent).
Meanwhile, Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi presented an appropriation bill of N208, 332, 100 bn to the state’s House of Assembly for 2018 fiscal year.
The budget is over N81bn increase from the 2017 budget, which is about N127,233,074,41bn.
Umahi noted that in the recurrent revenue, the expected sources would include bank opening, statutory allocation and internally generated revenue.
Umahi, in his breakdown of budget proposal, explained that banks opening balances brought forward stands at N18.889 9.07bn, statutory Allocation from Federal Government was N72.916 35bn, Internally Generated Revenue stands at N13.965 6.70 bn, while loan (Internal and External) N100.562 48.26bn, total expected receipts for 2018 budget N208.332 100bn.
Umahi stated that in the above revenue sources, the inflow from Federation Account amounts to N72.916bn or 35 per cent of the state’s 2018 budget estimates.
“This includes, statutory allocation and the component of the capital receipt, which includes: Value Added Tax share of Exchange Rate Gain; non oil Revenue Reimbursement from the Federal Government of Nigeria. Other sources include: N18.889bn unutilized dedicated funds that will be carried forward as the opening bank balance for the financial year; N100.562bn internal loan and N13.965bn from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR),” he said.
Umahi insisted that the state government intends to increase her tax revenue in the 2018 Fiscal Year by aggressively diversifying into numerous untapped tax revenue sources.
A breakdown of the Bayelsa budget showed that revenue was expected from statutory allocations N200bn; Value Added Tax (VAT) N8.5bn; Internally-Generated Revenue N24bn and other capital receipts of N62.7bn.
The state’s Ministry of Works and Infrastructure got the lion share of N36bn, followed by the ministries of Education, N22bn; Budget and Economic Planning, N13bn; Housing N10bn and Health N8.5bn.
The governor, who highlighted the achievements of his government in 2017, said the 2018 budget was geared towards paying more attention to all the capital investments in the state.
He said all the roads in the three senatorial districts would receive adequate attention while more internal roads would be constructed in the state capital, Yenagoa.
Dickson insisted that the ongoing public sector cleansing was aimed at freeing funds and space to enable the government lift the existing embargo on employment.
He vowed to sustain the ongoing reforms in the public sector, especially eliminating payroll fraud in the state adding that from next year all the tertiary institutions would only receive grants from the state government.
He, however, said the reforms in the educational sector would not affect teachers and assured workers of better welfare in 2018.
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