Governor Diri presents N242.187bn 2020 Appropriation Bill to Bayelsa Assembly

The Bayelsa State governor, Senator Douye Diri has presented to the State House of Assembly a N242.187 billion Appropriation Bill for consideration, assuring that the budget will cushion the effect of the economic downturn occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic.

Tribune Online reports that the proposed budget is N33bn less than the N275bn budgeted for the 2019 fiscal year by the previous administration.

The Appropriation Bill, christened “budget of consolidation for prosperity” earmarked the sum of N51.646 billion for personnel costs, N52.327 billion for overhead and N91.478 billion for consolidated revenue fund charges while N46.736billion was earmarked for capital spending.

A breakdown of the Appropriation Bill showed that the Ministry of Works and Transport led with the sum of N8.6billion and closely followed by the Ministry of Agriculture with N8billion.

Ministry of Education got N2.1 billion, health N1.75 billion, Power and Water Resources, N800 million, Housing and Urban Development, N640 million, Sports, N580 million while the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment got the sum of N430.9 million.

Speaking on Tuesday during the presentation of the 2020 Appropriation Bill, Governor Douye Diri assured that his administration will take proactive measures to cushion the effect of the economic downturn in the state by engaging vigorously the Federal Government, the Central Bank and the multilateral agencies like the World Bank to enable the government drive the budget successfully.

Governor Diri further assured that his administration will also encourage and mobilise the people to participate in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and Agriculture.

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Senator Diri equally highlighted other programmes to include infrastructure development, housing and urban renewal, human capital development and public sector and financial management reforms.

On the current economic outlook, the governor said as a result of the ravaging effect of COVID-19 on the global economy, there was the need for prudent management of resources.

He said the price of crude oil had nosedived drastically as against the Federal Government’s benchmark pegged at $55 per barrel thus affecting statutory revenue allocations from the Federation Account.

As part of efforts to reduce the cost of governance and enhance transparency, Senator Diri maintained that the human resources, financial reporting, budgeting and procurement component of the state’s Integrated Financial Management Information System (SIFMIS) would be fully implemented this year.