By Peter Okutu
EBONYI State government Wednesday presented a budget proposal of N60.1 billion for the 2011 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly for passage into law.

The 2011 budget, tagged “Budget of Reality”, is 21  per cent lower than the 2010 budget of N62.2 billion and has as its major revenue base the state’s share from the Federation Account, estimated at N27.32 billion.

According to the Governor Chief Martin Elechi, the economic sector has the largest chunk of N11.8 billion, while under Works and Transport, N6.56 billion would be used to complete on-going road and bridge projects in the state.

Presenting the budget proposal at the floor of the State House of Assembly, Governor Elechi explained that other sources mapped out for financing the budget include unutilized proceeds from the bond, which is now being brought forward into the new financial year.

He said: “This accounts for N9.34 billion or 16 per cent. The recurrent surplus also transferred from the recurrent revenue into the capital receipts of the year 2011 amounts to N7.51 billion or 12 percent the expected total revenue. Similarly, Value Added Tax and grants accounts for N5.8 billion and N5.57 billion respectively. Miscellaneous sources are expected to chunk in N1.93 billion while loans will drop from N22.23 billion in 2010 to N53 million.

“In the social services sector, education takes N2.256 billion; he health sector is allocated N1.3 billion; information has N433 million.

“This is expected, among other things, to complete the on-going Digitalized Radio and Conventional Television projects, both of which are expected to go on test transmission in January 2011,” the governor said.

For capital expenditure, the 2011 budget provided N30.195 billion for capital development as the amount appropriated is 36% less than the previous year’s provision.

According to Elechi, the reduction is due to the large drop in the internal loan portfolio.

He, however, said the reduction did not foreclose the likelihood of accessing the N3.5 billion balance on the bond issue.