Gov. Okowa presents N298.078 billion budget to Delta Assembly

Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa 

The Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, on Thursday presented the 2018 budget estimates of the state to the state House of Assembly.

The budget total is N298.078 billion.

The government plans to spend N150.5 billion on capital expenditure, which represents 50.52 per cent of the budget, while the recurrent expenditure is N147.5 billion (49.48 per cent).

The 2018 budget, said to have increased by 1.21 per cent when compared with that of 2017, is to be funded 59.73 per cent from the statutory allocation from the federation account and 23.94 per cent from the state’s internally generated revenue.

The two other funding sources are other capital receipts, 12.72 per cent, and the Value Added Tax (VAT), 3.61per cent.

The governor said that the state was planning to spend N64.3 billion (43.36 per cent) on personnel costs out of the N147.5 billion budgeted for the recurrent expenditure, while N46.8 billion (31.56 per cent) is proposed for the overhead costs.

The governor proposed N49.3 billion, N18.7 billion, N6.6 billion, and N1.66 billion for the building of roads and drains, capital projects in the education sector, health, and agriculture respectively.

The governor proposed N1.2 billion for wealth creation, while Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, is to receive N28 billion in 2018.

“One of the major achievements of our administration is stabilising the ship of state in the wake of the recession that swept through the country,” Mr. Okowa said during the budget presentation.

“Confronted with dwindling receipts from the Federation Account and Internally Generated Revenue vis-à-vis inherited contractual obligations, the first challenge we faced was the payment of salaries to the huge workforce.

“To put it in context, the total staff strength of the Federal Civil Service is about 89,000.

“As at the time we assumed office on May 29, 2015, Delta State had over 60,000 workers on its payroll. However, we were able to meet our obligations to the workers through debt payment re-scheduling, cutting waste, contracts reviews, and prudent management.

“As part of the on-going biometric exercise to weed out ghost workers, the State has been able to prune the size of the workforce to 55,000, which is still very high compared to that of peer states,” he said.

The governor said he was “determined to build a state anchored on inclusive economic growth and sustainable development.”