Ebonyi govt gives reason for 2019 budget’s downward review

THE Ebonyi Government on Tuesday offered reasons for the downward review of its 2019 budget of N188.4 billion, recently assented into law by Gov Dave Umahi.

Mr Obinna Nwachukwu, State Commissioner for Finance said during budget’s breakdown that it was reviewed downward because the 2018 budget of N208 billion was not fully accessed within the stipulated fiscal year.

Nwachukwu noted that the state government could not access more than N100 billion from the 2018 budget which ultimately made it review that of 2019.

“There is no need to budget so much and access about half of what you budgeted, so we came up with a budget that would be in line with what is possible to access.

“We even allowed the 2019 budget to be up to N188 billion because of the African Development Bank (ADB) loan which we are expecting to be used for internal roads.

ALSO READ: ASUU strike: NANS protests in Abuja, urges FG to resolve crisis

“We are expecting N50 billion from the bank as its interest rate is very insignificant with a single digit and would be spread over time.

“The N50 billion was provided for in the 2018 budget but we are rolling it over to that of 2019,” he said.

The commissioner said that the 2019 budget had a recurrent expenditure of N41.5 billion while the capital expenditure was N146.8 billion.

“The administrative sector has a provision of N27.3 billion with a recurrent provision of N14.4 billion and capital provision of N12.9 billion

“This is further broken into overhead and personnel costs with the former being costs of running the government such as travels and stationeries while the latter is for the payment of workers’ salaries,” he said.

He noted that the economic sector had a budgetary provision of N103.9 billion with a recurrent provision of N14 billion and capital provision of N89.9 billion.

“This sector consists of the ministries of housing, power, water resources among others and that accounts for its high budgetary provision.

“The law and justice sector which consists of the ministry of justice has a provision of N1.5 billion with a recurrent provision of N1.1 billion and a capital provision of N456 million.

“The regional sector which consists of the urban and capital territory has a provision of N1.5 billion while the social sector has a budgetary provision of N51.7 billion

“The social sector which has a recurrent provision of N11.7 billion and a capital provision of N39.9 billion consists of the ministries of education, health, women affairs, among others,” he said.

Mrs Queen Agwu, the state Accountant-General, noted that the 29 per cent budgetary provision for the ministry of works would be for the completion of all ongoing projects and execution of new ones.

“The governor has approved and released funds for the completion of these projects and for the new ones such as the Isu-Agba-Ntezi road, the Uburu road, Sharon road in Izzi LGA, among others,” she added.