Why Delta govt approved N66bn supplementary budget ― Commissioner

Following exigencies in its education and health sectors, a supplementary budget draft of N66 billion has been approved by the Delta State government. The draft is to be presented to the state House of Assembly this week.

Disclosing this in Asaba weekend, the Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, said the supplementary budget became imperative as a result of the establishment of three new universities, recruitment of medical staff and other critical areas of need.

It would be recalled that for the 2021 fiscal year, Gov Ifeanyi Okowa, presented a budget proposal of N378.48 billion but the state assembly increased the figure to N383 billion before passing the same into law.

The sum of N425 billion for the 2022 fiscal year has already been presented to the state house of assembly.

According to him, the council approved N946m counterpart funding for 2021 UBEC intervention to address critical educational infrastructure in the state.

Aniagwu told newsmen that the state executive council also considered key areas in the 2022 appropriation bill as it called on ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to reorder their estimates in line with the critical focus of the proposed budget.

Aniagwu also said Exco commenced a case-by-case consideration of the report of the judicial panel of enquiry on police brutality in the state.

“Today we commenced the consideration of the white paper on the outcome of the judicial panel of enquiry that was set up to look into the allegations bothering on police brutality which is otherwise known as the #EndSARS protest.

“In that recommendation, there were a number of issues as to what the police need to do and then also issues of compensation of families who may have lost their loved ones.

“We have gone halfway and we are hoping that in our next State Exco meeting we will conclude consideration and adoption of the white paper.

“During the course of the year, we carried out a budget performance review and we found out that the actuals by way of revenue fell below what the estimate was for eight months period from January to August 2021.

“In that scenario, if the revenue can’t fund the expenditure profile it is only reasonable that you look at some form of adjustments and that is why we had to reorder the budget by reprioritizing our expenditure profile,” he stated.

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