Kaduna government proposes N201bn budget for 2018

The state Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Muhammad Abdullahi, said at a town hall meeting on the proposal in Kaduna, that members of the general public were free to scrutinize the draft budget and make input before its presentation to the state Assembly.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in the proposal, the government has earmarked N125 billion for capital expenditure and N75.5 billion for recurrent.

The state will begin the new fiscal year with an opening balance of N8 billion, and expects an internal revenue of N40.9 billion in 2018 and N32 billion from the Federation Account.

Abdullahi said that under the capital expenditure, N34.4 billion was for the economic sector, with Works, Housing and Transport having the largest chunk of N25.4 billion.

He said that Rural and Community Development was allocated N3.8 billion, Agric and Forestry N3.6 billion, N1.1 billion was proposed for Commerce and Industry.

The commissioner added that N47 billion was earmarked for the Social Sector with N30.2 billion going to education; N15.7 billion to health and N981 million to social development.

Abdullahi further said that the Regional Sector was allocated N14.5 billion, out of which the government would spend N11.2 billion on water supply and N3.3 billion on environment.

The budget also earmarked N29.8 billion for General Administration with the Executive having the largest share of N22.2 billion, Governance and Institutional Reform N5.4 billion, Law and Justice N1.5 billion and Legislature N546 million.

The commissioner told the gathering that the 2018 budget was based on the Kaduna State Development Plan earlier developed with inputs from all stakeholders.

“This is our third town hall meeting specifically on the budget as part of fulfillment of the promise of this administration to ensure that our citizens have a say in the governance of the state.

“Our town hall meetings have not been a talk-shop. They have been platforms where we genuinely reflect on the inputs provided by the people.

“Since yesterday, our draft 2018 budget has been made publicly accessible and available for comments, criticisms and suggestions.

“We take all of these seriously because we know we are not perfect and we look to you today for your input before we deliver the budget to the assembly.”

He explained that the 2018-2020 Multi-Year Budget was hinged on the 2016 Zero- Based Budget principle tailored towards actualization of the State Development Plan 2016 – 2020.

Abdullahi stressed that the key targets of the 2018 budget was the completion of all projects which would be rolled over from 2017 and actualisation of various government plans.

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“Others are maintaining a favourable proportion of Capital to Recurrent expenditure target of 60 per cent/ 40 per cent; Leverage N800 billion in public private partnership, and expand the revenue base of the state by exploring untapped sources.

“We would also improve economic growth through investment in infrastructure and eliminating wastages and other unjustifiable expenditure that are not clearly linked to policy objectives,” the commissioner said.

Earlier, Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai assured that work on the abandoned drainage in Kaduna and other majors towns in the state and urged apologised to residents over problems encountered due to non completion of the project.

He also pledged to complete other ongoing projects started by his administration.