The Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, has stated that the 2021 Budget proposals (Estimates) of Local Contents and Sustainable Development was the departure from the tradition of spending more on recurrent expenditures and investing less on capital projects.
Ikpeazu stated this on his official Twitter page on Tuesday reiterating that his administration will aggressively pursue the development of Small and Medium Enterprises to boost the economy without reliance on oil.
Read the full statement below;
Yesterday, I presented our 2021 Budget proposals (Estimates) of Local Contents and Sustainable Development to the Abia State House of Assembly for their consideration and passage. The Budget was so christened because it is a departure from the tradition of spending more on recurrent expenditures and investing less on capital projects. By reversing that trend, deliberately and aggressively pursue the support and development of SMEs, our economy will experience the attendant boon even without our current reliance on oil.
In preparing this Budget, consideration was given to effective and efficient resource allocation and utilization. In particular, we considered:
• Reinventing the Abia spirit of industry and ingenuity. To this end, we intend to stimulate industrialization through the establishment of Cottage Industries in each of the 17 LGAs of the State.
• Proper prioritization of peoples’ needs to ensure that programmes and projects meet citizens’ demands and that their implementation guarantee value-for-money.
• Careful identification, harmonization and monitoring of revenue-generating windows for effective revenue mobilization. This will be accompanied by putting appropriate measures in place to cushion revenue leakages, economic waste in resource utilization and to ensure proper resource redistribution.
• Identification and promotion of local contents in all Abia innovations and inventions, products and services for sustainable socio-economic development of the State. Our goal for 2021 is to attain sustainable development by increasing local content.
• Re-jigging Agencies of Government to ensure they are more productive, coordinated and effective in delivering services to Abians and interpreting our vision of delivering multi-sectoral growth for the State.
the State adopted 2021 – 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper of the Federal Government which set out the parameters for the 2021 Budget as follows:
• Benchmark oil price of 40 US Dollars per barrel;
• Daily oil production estimate of 1.86 million barrels (inclusive of Condensates of 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day);
• Exchange rate of N379 per US Dollar; and
• GDP growth projected at 3.0 per cent and inflation closing at 11.95 per cent.
It is the wish of the present Administration to prepare an equitable, realistic and implementable budget in the context of multi-year (2021-2023) Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) that will be in line with the current economic realities.
The Total projected Budget outlay for 2021 fiscal year is N131,815,753,720 (One Hundred and Thirty-One Billion, Eight Hundred & Fifteen Million, Seven Hundred & Fifty-Three Thousand, Seven Hundred & Twenty Naira only) showing an increase of 22.12% from 2020 Revised Budget.
The Break Down is as follows:-
1) Recurrent expenditure of N62,624,512,746which is 47.51% of the total expenditure & 11.73% increase from the 2020 Revised Budget.
2) Capital expenditure of N69,191,240,974 which is 52.49% of the total Budget expenditure & 31.52% increase from the 2020 Revised Budget.
The percentage of distribution of aggregate expenditures to the 2021 total Budget. Outlay is 47.51% for recurrent & 52.49% for capital. The 2021 Budget is aimed after on-going projects & programmes. New projects will mainly be in the form of COVID-19 responsive projects that aim to cushion the shocks of the pandemic & assist the State economy to recover quickly. Projects dealing with reducing the constraints of rural areas in the evacuation of men & materials to urban centres are also included.
We hope that this Budget will help us get closer to our aim of delivering on our mandate to the people.
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