*Says Schools Will Remain Closed
By Esther Nworie
Governor of Ebonyi state, Chief Dave Umahi, on Monday signed into law the 2020 revised budget.
The virtual budget signing took place at the Ecumenical Center in Abakaliki the state capital.
The 2020 budget was slashed downward following the Coronavirus pandemic. The budget was reduced from N178.366bn to N131.847bn.
Umahi while signing the budget said the state was focusing much on Agriculture to recover from the pandemic.
He noted that schools in the state would remain closed until their environments were cleared of bushes and all other necessary measures put in place for effective teaching and learning.
“Let nobody think that my administration will one day assemble whatever we get in Abuja and begin to share it. I will not Ebonyi money. Ebonyi state is a construction site, we have done a lot of empowerment, we have done a lot of projects.
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“Let me make it clear that Ebonyi schools will not open now. If every states is opening their schools, Ebonyo will not follow them. We have started the process to see how we can reopen and the process is to use the communities to clear all the schools; primary schools and secondary schools and then send medical teams to look at them and then they do sample testing of the teachers.
“Our medical teams will teach the teachers about COVID-19 protocol. We will look at the syllabus of our primary schools and secondary schools and they will be reviewed by the teachers”, he said.
In a remark, the Commissioner for finance in the state Mr. Orlando Nweze explained that the proposed budget for post Covid-19 would be sunk into rehabilitation of general hospitals in the State, agriculture and other major sectors for the survival of Ebonyi residents.
“Your Excellency, Today, the 20th day of July 2020, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, may I re-present to you 2020 revised budget revised from the initially approved 2020 budget of N178,136,634,975.38 to N132,002,391,626.66 with a percentage decrease of 25.9% having a total Covid-19 expenditure of N28,615,000,000.000 accounting for 21.68% of the total budget expenditure.”
