Gov. Okowa Presents N389bn Budget To Delta Assembly

The Delta State Governor, has presented an appropriation bill of N389,190,799,362 for 2020 fiscal year to the leadership of the state assembly.

The Governor tagged the budget as “Budget of sustained development”.

The budget has a recurrent expenditure of N171.5 billion estimate, representing 44%, while N217.6 billion representing 56% is for capital expenditures.

Meanwhile, the 2020 State budget estimates is about N2 billion less than the 2019 state budget of N391 billion.

The Governor stressed that proposed appropriation bill would help solidify his developmental projects for the state. Adding that, the 2020 revenue and expenditure estimates were based on a medium-term expenditure framework which projected $57 benchmark price for crude oil at production level of N2.18 million barrels per day, 10.36 per cent annual inflation, 3.6 per cent projected real IGP growth and exchange rate of N305 to the US dollar.

Okowa however, revealed that his administration experienced difficulty in 2015 and 2017. Adding that, the state’s debt stood at N200bn.

“The projected debt of the state is about N200 billion but we are spending a reasonable amount of money to service the debts, and that is not impinging on our ability to execute projects or pay salaries.

“The time we had challenges was 2015, 2016 and 2017. Right now we can comfortably pay back the debts on a monthly basis, have money for capital expenditure and be able to pay salaries. So we don’t have any issue”.

Okowa maintained that the debts were not accumulated by the present administration, expressing confidence that any debt incurred since 2015 would be cleared before he leaves office in 2023.