By Valentine Amanze
Niger State Executive Council has downsized the state’s 2020 approved budget by 36 per cent.
The state Commissioner for Budget and Planning Commission, Alhaji Mamman Musa, disclosed this during post-exco media briefing at the Government House, Minna.
Musa said that the assented 2020 budget which stood at N155 billion would have a new size of N98 billion when approved.
He said that they were being mindful of the recurrent expenditure which, in the 2020 budget, stood at N70 billion while the capital expenditure is N85 billion.
According to him, when approved, the new budget will concentrate on only projects that have attained 75 per cent completion, adding that new projects would only be considered based on their necessity of demand.
Musa added that overhead cost to Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) had been reduced to 75 per cent as well as travel expenses of government officials.
He said that the downward review of the 2020 budget was imperative due to the global economic downturn caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The commissioner said that the 2020 budget was prepared with 90 per cent of income projection coming from the statutory allocation hinged on the oil sector with a benchmark of crude oil at $57 per barrel, complaining that since the outbreak of the Coronavirus, the global oil prices dropped below $30 per barrel which has drastically affected the 2020 budget, hence the need for the review. The commissioner pointed out that the state government was already looking inward towards enhancing its internally generated revenue to cover some of the envisaged shortfall.