Governor Ishaku presents 2018 budget proposal of N96.5bn to legislature

Gov. Darius Ishaku of Taraba on Thursday presented a budget proposal of N96.5 billion to the state legislature for 2018 fiscal year.

While laying the estimates before the legislators in Jalingo, Ishaku explained that the budget proposal was about 12 per cent lower than the estimate for 2017 when the state budgeted N110.1 billion.

He said that N41.2 billion of the budget proposal was for recurrent expenditure, while the balance of about N45.3 billion was for capital expenditure.

Ishaku, who tagged the proposal as “Budget of Sustainable Growth”, said that the budget would be funded from Internally Generated Revenue of N5.3 billion, Federal Allocation of N31.5 billion and Value Added Tax (VAT) of N9.2 billion.

Other sources include Aids and Grants – N4.8 billion, Refunds from Federal Government of over N30 billion, Domestic Loans of N11.4 billion andexternal loans of N4.2 billion.

He appealed to members to process the budget proposal speedily for early passage.

The Speaker of the House, Mr Abel Diah, commended the governor on the level of implementation of the 2017 budget.

He also commended the people-oriented projects carried out by the administration across the state in the outgoing year.

Diah assured the governor of the readiness of the assembly to cooperative with the executive to improve the lots of the people.