Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi state, Wednesday presented his proposed intention of reducing the 2020 budget by 26 percent against the proposal earlier approved by the state House of Assembly in December, 2019.
The year’s fiscal budget was approved at N178.366 billion but the governor due to the effect of Covid-19 in the state decided to revise it down to N131.847 billion.
Umahi disclosed this to the state during the 2020 citizens budget input/ public participation at the christian ecumenical center, Abakaliki, the state capital.
Presenting the proposed budget review, the governor, “We have proposed a budget of N131.847 billion against the approved budget of 178.366 bn, and so we are here before you with a budget review proposal that has the size of 26% reduction.
“In doing this, we have made some proposals in our review which we want in this public hearing of different segments in our state to review, to enable us finalise the budget and give it to the Houses of Assembly for approval.
“Health has approved 9.1 percent of the total budget and in five months they have achieved 4.39 percent, meaning that if we were to continue with the budget they would have gotten over 100percent in 1year because of Covid-19 and economic recovery.
“We need to examine the 2020 budget revised proposal and in proposing for revision of the budget, we have to examine the performance of two MDAs.
“Health that had 9.18 percent has increased by about 8.13 percent which means that health is coming to about 18 percent of our revised budget.
“Education also increased by 1.3 percent, agriculture by .25 percent, infrastructure by 2.6 percent and works went down by 15.74%.
“So what we have done here is what we called opportunity costs, because of our receipt some MDA budget will have to go down and most essential services especially in the fight against Covid-19, both in crisis management and debt recovery had to come up.”
