Governor presents 2018 budget estimate of N220.5B

Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State on Thursday presented the state’s 2018 budget estimate of N220.5 billion to the State House of Assembly for deliberation.

Presenting the budget, Tambuwal said out of total amount, N152.8 billion was for capital projects while the sum of N67.6 billion was for recurrent expenditure.

He said that, the 2018 budget which was tagged; “A Budget of Sustainable Positive Change, ” will focus on completion of the projects started in 2017 and execution of new ones.

“For the third year running, the education sector got the highest allocation of over N67.5 billion, representing 26.1 per cent of the total estimates.

The sectors include: education, agriculture, healthcare delivery, exploration of mineral resources, investment in renewable energy and infrastructure,

“We will prioritise effective resources management and seek intervention in areas with high potentialities to create job opportunities, generate income and improve revenue generation,” the governor said.

He added that the cardinal objective of the government is to ensure it meets the expectations of the people, “as such it is my ardent hope to continue to include the promotion of peaceful coexistence and protection of lives and properties.

“We will work to strengthen capacity building of scheduled ministries to ensure they perform better in their tasks.

“Of great importance to us will be the promotion of partnership with the private sector in areas of strategic importance to our development objective.

“We will promote value chain through agro-processing and diversification by way of giving incentives to farmers and producers.

“ We will also create backward and forward linkages between and among institutions, partners and other stakeholders to accelerate economic growth,” he said.

Allocations to other sectors in the budget proposal showed that the health sector got N20.9 billion and agriculture got N16.5 billion.

Similarly, the ministry of Works and Transport got N14.3 billion while the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Survey got N11.6 billion.

The Speaker, Salihu Maidaji, promised that the legislators would ensure speedy passage of the appropriation bill to sustain the tempo of development in the state.