Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has presented a budget estimate of N132.5billion for 2021 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.

Daily Trust Saturday reports that the 2021 budget which is made up of N90.8b recurrent expenditure and N41.8b capital expenditure is N23.7billion higher than the 2020 revised budget of N108.8billion.

He said that the 2021 budget christened, ‘Budget of Resilience’ took into consideration the need to strengthen the resilience of Benue people and the state as it seeks to recover from the global, national and sub-national economic and pandemic crises.

Ortom while presenting the N132,592,041,310.00 estimate before the lawmakers intimated that of the amount, N20billion would be expended on health and food security in the context of COVID-19.

The governor disclosed that the Economic sector takes the highest share of N51.3billion followed by the Social sector with the sum of N44.5billion while the Administrative as well as Law and Justice sectors got N33.8billion and N2.8billion respectively.

Receiving the estimated budget, Speaker of the House, Titus Uba, assured that the assembly would ensure speedy passage of the budget as he appealed for cooperation of his members and the various MDAs to achieve success.