Breaking: Gov. Obiano presents 2021 Budget estimate to House of Assembly

Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano, on Tuesday presented the 2021 budget estimates to the state House of Assembly in Awka. The budget named the Budget of Economic Recovery and Consolidation totalled N143.65 billion.

Presenting the document, Obiano said that the budget estimate was based on the realistic projections of all sources of revenue, both external and internal, and that the state’s revenue and expenditure trends were taken into consideration.

“For the 2021 fiscal year, we are proposing a budget size of N143.65bn. This budget is based on realistic projections of all sources of revenue, both external and internal, taking into consideration the state’s revenue and expenditure trend.

“While recurrent expenditure is projected to gulp 39.5% of the total budget size, translating to N56.77bn, the remaining 60.5% which translates to N86.88bn is for capital expenditure.

“This is expected to drive the 2021 budget. This budget will help sustain our past performance and ensure that we maintain our status as a hub for business and a destination for new investments”, he said.

The governor said that for the basis and assumptions for the draft FY 2021 budget estimate, the government adopted some macro-economic assumptions for it.

“A crude oil price benchmark of US$35/bbl and an average daily production of 1.86m barrels, translating to a projected annual FAAC of N46.7bn as against the 2020 revised figure of N34.4bn.

“Value Added Tax revenue projection is pegged at N20.8bn annually, which is a 10% increase from the 2020 figure of N18bn.

“Internally Generated Revenue is projected at N3.04bn monthly and N36.6bn annually for 2021, compared to the revised actual run rate of N1.16bn monthly and N13.96bn annually.

“We plan to achieve this by optimizing our IGR windows through automation as well as strengthening our enforcement initiatives and sustaining the growth of our tax database. We will not increase taxes or levies in the coming year.”

“Capital Receipts (including grants, other FAAC transfers, counterpart funds, aid and concessionary funding) are estimated at N20.9bn.

“Personnel costs are estimated at N1.47bn monthly which is about N17.6bn for the year. This figure will ensure that new hires are accommodated into the civil service, including the replacement of retired teachers and staff promotions.

“Total Overheads are estimated at N19bn monthly and N22.9bn for 2021 as against N21.3bn for the 2020 revised figure; while Social Benefits and Contributions including Pensions, Gratuities, group life insurance and loan repayments are projected at N16.2bn for the fiscal year 2021.

“We have provided N11.0bn for debt financing. This comprises a single digit concessionary programme lending for interventions in Healthcare, Social Investments, Agriculture, Manufacturing and Youth Entrepreneurship”, Obiano stated.

The governor told the lawmakers that he was “extremely delighted to report that we have pushed our IGR from a monthly figure of N1.2bn to approximately N1.7bn in 2019. We were on course to achieve N2.0bn monthly before the onset of COVID-19 pandemic.”

He said that despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state government “achieved a recurrent expenditure half year budget performance rate of approximately 49.5% while our capital expenditure half year budget performance stood at approximately 45.8%.”

“This led to an aggregate half year budget performance of 47.2%. However, with the restart of the economy and the return to normalcy witnessed in the latter periods of the current year, I expect our overall budget performance to improve to approximately 80% by the end of this fiscal year.”