Niger Assembly Revises 2021 Budget One Week after Presentation

Laleye Dipo in Minna

Barely one week after the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, presented the 2022 budget to the state House of Assembly, the state legislators have revised the 2021 fiscal estimate reducing the budget size to N149,916,201,253. The actual budget estimate was N153, 412, 621,776.

The reduction of the budget is as a result of “significant reduction in the revenue accruable to the state most importantly the statutory allocation which constituted 50 percent of the total revenue expectations.”

Presenting the report of the Committee on Planning and Appropriation assigned to look into the request made by the executive, the Chairman of the committee Alhaji Mohammed Lokogoma, noted that  the shortfall in the revenue accruable to the state has hindered the achievement and actualisation of government developmental objectives, adding that “the issue of insecurity in the country as well as the impact of COVID-19 and its negative consequences on the economy of many countries, including our dear country” is another contributory factor.

Lokogoma told the committee of the whole that the recurrent expenditure was revised to N72.5billion while the capital expenditure was reviewed to N77.3 billion.

As a result, the committee recommended that allocation of funds to some projects, including the Kontagora Street light, be revised.

Virtually all those that spoke on the review of the budget were very positive in their thoughts leading to overwhelming passage of the report.

Speaker of the Assembly, Alhaji Abdullahi Bawa Wuse, directed that a clean copy be prepared and forwarded to the governor for his assent.

The governor had last week presented the 2022 budget of over N198billion to the special session of the Assembly.

The Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Zakari Abubakar, during the breakdown of the budget, said 59.6 percent of amount would be sourced from loans.