DELTA BUDGETS N240.5B FOR 2011

DELTA State Acting Governor, Sam Obi, yesterday presented a budget of N240.58 billion to the State House of Assembly for 2011.

The figure is N91.2 billion or 27.50 per cent short of the 2010 budget of N331.86 billion.

Obi, while presenting the 'Budget of Actualisation and Realisation,' said it was made up of N117 billion or 48.98 per cent for recurrent expenditure and N122.73 billion or 51.02 per cent for capital expenditure.

He explained that the reduction was due to renewed agitation by militants in the Niger Delta, which resulted in the declining derivation indices to the state.

According to him, internally generated revenue will account for N34.15 billion as against N65.85 billion for last year.

The Delta State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (DESOPADEC) was allocated N30 billion or 50 per cent of projected derivation receipt from crude oil accruable to the state from the Federation Account while N2.5 billion was provided for the upgrade of some selected secondary schools.

He proposed N11.6 billion as statutory allocation instead of N163.09 billion, which was the figure for last year - an amount that was N46.32 billion or 28.4 per cent lower than that of the outgoing year.

For capital receipts/miscellaneous, N83.38 billion was proposed.  For the purpose of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the acting governor set aside a total sum of N1.5 billion as the state's counterpart fund while N500 million was provided each for drainage work for the Warri, Asaba and Ughelli drainage projects.

He added that the total recurrent expenditure is N117.85 billion while personnel and overhead cost got N45.01 billion and N37.95 billion respectively.