By Beauty John, LAFIA
The Governor Abdullahi Sule administration, on Thursday, disclosed that it inherited over fifty billion naira (N50bn) debt from the previous administration on assumption of office in 2019.
The state Commissioner of finance, budget and planning, Haruna Adamu Ogbole disclosed this, while fielding questions from journalists at the 2021 budget breakdown in Lafia.
According to the finance commissioner, concerned by the debt inherited and the plight of those indebted to, the governor has earmarked N7bn naira in this year’s budget to commence the liquidation of the outstanding debt of the state.
Ogbole, while noting that the 2021 budget of N115,722,814,343.00 was signed into law on December 30, 2020 added that Education gets the highest allocation.
According to him, the sectorial allocation in percentages sees Education having 30, Infrastructure 14.5, Governance 12.9, Finance, investment 11.3, Health 10.4, Agriculture 5.9, Law and Justice 3.7, Legislation 3.0 and Environment 2.8 respectively.
The commissioner said this year’s budget is tagged “Budget of economic recuperation” assuring that the government will ensure strict implementation of the programmes and projects as contained in the budget.
According to Ogbole, the budget is to be funded from the following sources: Federation account statutory revenue allocation of N37bn, VAT 15bn, Exchange gain 2.1 billion and special allocation 3bn respectively.
“Internally generated revenue is estimated at 26.43; Aids and grants 16.28 and Deficit financing borrowing 14.46 billion,” he said.
He explained further that expenditure estimate for the year under revenue is, recurrent is N53,874,156,817.00 or 46.55 percent while capital expenditure is N54,830,925,495.00 or 47.38 percent and consolidated revenue fund charges is N7,017,732,031.00 or 6.21 percent.
