COVID-19: Benue reduces 2020 budget by N80.6bn

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, on Monday, gave assent to the revised budget of N108.8 billion.

The revised budget is N80.6 billion lesser than the initial approved N190.8 billion for the 2020 fiscal year.

The Benue State House of Assembly, had on July 23rd passed into law the revised budget during plenary.

Governor Ortom while given assent to the budget at Government House Makurdi yesterday said the initial estimates were revised due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Ortom said: “Based on assumptions the revised 2020 Budget now shows recurrent expenditure earlier put at N108,548,525,887.00 now reduced to N68,557,429,886.40.

Personnel which was N50,637,250,646.00 has been reduced to N37,286,131,793. 26. While Overhead which stood at
N63,911,275,240.00 is now. N31,271,298,093 . 51 and Capital expenditure earlier put at N74,934,985,138.00 has been reduced to N40,265,253,295.

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He explained that based on oil price and production benchmarks coupled with exchange rate projections, Benue state is facing a fall in both oil-related and non-oil revenues, which could be anything between a 57 per cent to 67 per cent drop over the course of the year.

“Income from traditional revenue sources such as earnings, tax, PMS under-recovery (now zero) and Value Added Tax (VAT) is expected to decline along with our own internally generated revenue (IGR). Needless to say, these adjustments have made it necessary for us to revise the approved 2020 budget.

“Noting the above assumptions and taking into consideration the impact of oil crash and COVID-19 on the global, national and sub-national economies, we are now proposing the total sum of one hundred and eight billion, eight hundred and twenty-two million, six hundred and eighty-three thousand, one hundred and eighty-one naira (N108,822,683,181.00) only for approval as revised estimated aggregate revenue from all sources in the fiscal year 2020.

“His figure represents a reduction of eighty billion, six hundred and sixty million, eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-four naira (N80,660,827,844.00) or 43% from the approved the year 2020 revenue estimates,” Ortom stated.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE