Assures of full salaries, others
Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, yesterday, announced a reduction of the state’s 2020 budget by 24.3 per cent, following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.
Diri, who spoke at the COVID-19 Responsive Citizenship Participatory Budget review of the 2020 Appropriation law in Yenagoa, announced a reduction of the budget from N242b to N183b.
He said the state government had passed and signed over N242b as its 2020 appropriation bill on April 22, noting that the reduction in the 2020 budget was due to the increasing economic decline resulting from the global pandemic.
He, however, said the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the oil sector badly would not affect the personnel cost and salaries, which earlier stood at over N51.6b.
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“On proposed expenditure, the downward review of personnel cost will remain the same as earlier proposed because we don’t want anything that will disturb the workers.
“From the revised budget figure, nothing will affect the personnel cost and salaries. There is no intention to reduce workers salaries. We should even be thinking of increasing salaries once our resources improve,” he stated.
He explained that Value Added Tax (VAT), which was projected at over N10b had reduced by 7.7 per cent to about N9b, while the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of over N16b had reduced by 37.5 per cent to N10b.
Diri added that Federal Government’s reimbursement, earlier put at N44b increased to N55b, being the only increase in the review.
“I have resolved to make Bayelsa not to be dependent on only monthly allocations, but to thrive through agriculture, trade, tourism and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). That is why we called this administration a Prosperity Administration,” he added.
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