Benue House of Assembly on Friday passed the 2021 budget of N134.3 billion for the state.

The passage followed the presentation of the report of the House Committee on Appropriation by the Chairman, Mr Peter Enemari (Ogbadibo/PDP) at the plenary.

The committee chairman said the budget was made up of N91.5 billion recurrent expenditure and N42.7 billion capital expenditure.

He said that there was an increase of N1.7 billion on the figure presented by Gov. Samuel Ortom.

Ortom presented the 2021 Appropriation Bill of N132.5 billion to the state assembly on Nov. 5.

Enemari said the increase was as a result of additional requests by Public Sector Estimates (PSEs) for inclusion of some critical projects which were omitted in the budget.

The house approved deficit financing of the budget to the tune of N23.8 billion.

After contributions by members in favour of the bill, the Speaker, Mr Titus Uba, directed the Clerk of the House, Mr Terese Agenda, to read it for the third time.

NAN