N550.6bn: Wike presents 2023 budget to Rivers House of Assembly

Wike's numbers: The Governor presented a budget estimate of N550,666, 987, 238 for consideration by the House.

The current expenditure of Rivers State: The recurrent expenditure of N175, 249, 692, 497 represents about 31% of the entire 2023 budget which was proposed.

Proposed capital expenditure: For the capital expenditure, N350, 977, 495, 537 was proposed by the governor which represents 63.2% of the entire budget.

According to Governor Wike: “The 2023 budget is constructed within the framework of the state Medium Term Expenditure Framework, the state Economic Strategic Paper, the national economic outlook and the state economic growth projection.

“It anchors on the following key assumptions: crude oil price benchmark of $70/barrel, national crude oil production estimate of 1.5 million barrels per day, currency exchange rate of N435.67 to the dollar, national Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 10%, an inflation rate of 13.1% and state economic growth projection of between of between 4.5% and 5%.”

What you should know: The governor also disclosed that the revenue realized in the 2022 budget was deployed for salaries, general administrations for recurrent expenditure and several projects for capital expenditure.

In other news: Wike has called on other states in Nigeria to join Rivers State in the fight to take control of the Value Added Tax (VAT) in Nigeria.

The governor noted that the funds generated from the collection of VAT will form part of the funding from the budget for 2023.