The Bauchi State Government on Wednesday announced the slashing of its 2020 fiscal year budget from N167 billion to N128 billion to meet the new realities occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr Aminu Gamawa, said at a news conference in Bauchi that the decision was as a result of the negative impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the state’s economy.
He said that the new budget would be sent to the state House of Assembly for deliberations and subsequent passage into law.
“As you are very much aware, the outbreak of COVID-19 is a global issue and has caused not only health crisis but also economic recession across the globe.
“Bauchi state is also affected by this economic problems caused by the COVID-19 and that is why the state governor set up a committee to advise him on the economic implications of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 has caused a decline in revenue generation almost in every country globally, including Nigeria. For this reason, the governor has directed that the 2020 budget should be revised to meet the new realities.
“The last budget estimate was N167 billion, however, the current budget estimate is N128 billion. This means we have scaled down on the amount of capital projects that we are going to carry out.
“This budget is still an executive bill, it will be taken to the state assembly for deliberations and after it has been passed into law, it will be published on our website because this is a government that believes in transparency and accountability,” Gamawa said.
The commissioner added that the new budget was effectively examined and ensured that some projects which the state government had no money to implement were removed and new ones related to COVID-19 pandemic were included.
“We looked at it, we examined it and we made it more realistic by ensuring that projects that we don’t have money to implement are excluded from the budget.
“Also, projects that are important now as a result of COVID-19 that were not in the budget have been included, particularly in sectors like health, education, agriculture and empowerment.
“What we did is to amend the old budget so that we have a document that is more realistic and replaces it with the realities of today,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Bauchi State; as of Tuesday, June 16, recorded 430 cases of COVID-19, discharged 247, 172 on admission with 11 deaths. (NAN)