Plateau State Governor, Simon Bako Lalong signs the revised 2020 Appropriation Bill.

The budget was slashed from N177.340bn to N122.848bn to address the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.

This revised budget consists of N42.8bn for capital expenditure and N79.9bn for recurrent expenditure.

Governor, Simon Bako Lalong in a statement through his spokesman, Makut Simon Macham, cited the need to tackle the current economic realities.

“For us as a state, the impact has been huge as our earnings have drastically fallen even in the face of demands for funds to carry out statutory responsibilities and also respond to the challenges of the corona virus pandemic. That is why we engaged in various cost-cutting measures to enable us manage the lean resources efficiently and also try to fulfil our most basic responsibilities of providing services to our citizens,” he said.

Lalong added that the state had engaged a trustworthy revenue collection firm to meet the revenue targets, especially the Internally Generated Revenue, “which is crucial to funding the 2020 budget.”

He also charged the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning as well as other MDAs to ensure strict and effective implementation in line with extant financial regulations.