by Usman Alabi
Gov Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti has presented a budget of N93.4bn to the Ekiti state Assembly. The budget was tagged, “Budget of Higher Height”
The budget is 33 per cent higher than the N70.5bn presented in 2016. According to the governor, the recurrent expenditure for 2017 budget is N55.02bn which is 59 percent of the budget, while capital expenditure is N38.42 bn or 41 per cent of the estimates.
“In arriving at this figure, we took into consideration various parameters, assumptions and indications. Issues like the exchange rate, inflation figure, crude oil price, oil production and inflation, among others,” he said.
“But in our characteristic manner, we chose to be conservative believing that it is better to budget within achievable limits rather than overload the budget document with unrealistic figures.”
Fayose said the N93.5 billion would be sourced from federal allocations, internally generated revenues from MDAs, tertiary institutions, VAT, Education Intervention Fund, grants and loans, MDGs conditional grant schemes, reimbursements from the federal government on road projects, Paris Club refund of differentials, and sundry incomes.
According to premium times, the revenue profile indicated that the bulk of the funds would come from federal allocations with an annual expectation of N31 billion, followed by VAT and external loans which records N10 billion and N N8.4 billion respectively.
An analysis of the budget shows that the state is not clear on the amount it intends to generate as IGR. Ekiti state is one of the states with the lowest IGR in the country. Apart from this, the state also has a very large public sector, in other words, there seems not to be any genuine factor in the state that attract foreign investment. One would have expected that more investment would have been targeted at projects that could stimulate IGR and make the state attractive for investment.
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