Umahi presents N178.1bn 2020 budget estimate

Ogochukwu Anioke, Anioke

Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi on Friday presented a budget estimate of N178.136bn to the state House of Assembly for  the 2020 fiscal year.

The budget tagged ‘Budget of Growth, Consolidation and Transformation’, according to the governor has provisions for the  payment of the new minimum wage next year.

“Our commitment towards minimum wage for our civil servants is unwavering. We shall prioritize funding on the minimum wage and also introduce incentive –based programmes to motivate and reward our civil servants especially our teachers,”he said

He noted that a total of N46.080bn has been earmarked for recurrent expenditure while capital expenditure will gulp N132.056bn.

This means that capital expenditure will get a lion share of 74.13 percent of the budget leaving recurrent expenditure with 25.87 percent.

The governor explained that spending on capital budget has been prioritized in favour of critical on-going projects.

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“A look at the budget proposal shows that health, education, works, security, iInfrastructure, agriculture and human capital development and commerce and industry will be accorded priority in this 2020 budget”, Umahi said

According to the governor: “works  and infrastructure for  concession will receive a total of N54,125,083,468.48 or 30.38% of the total budget sum.

“Education  will receive a total of N27,097,262,388.69 or 15.21% of the total budget sum. Similarly , health will receive a total of N15,466,541,603.85 or 8.68% of the total budget.

“Human Capital Development and Commerce and Industry will jointly receive the sum of

N 8,016,088,324.70) or 4.50% of the total sum.

“Agriculture will receive N3,769,742,710.65) or 2.13% of the budget.

“Security  will receive N 111,150,218,496.37) or 62.40% of the budget sum allocated to the six  critical sub-sectors,” he said

The governor said that the state government will inject N7.6 billion in construction and renovation of schools, across 171 wards of the state, equip schools and construct modern library and e-learning facilities for students.

“We shall embark on comprehensive training and retraining of teachers to enhance their knowledge and teaching skills. The four vocational institutes namely: The King David Gifted Children Academy, Vocational college, Vocational Agric Training Institute and The Tehilla Adult Education School shall be adequately funded and they shall be a spring board for economic development in the state’, the governor said.