As Taraba acting Gov presents N97.3bn to Assembly

By Charles Kumolu & John Mkom

KADUNA—The Kaduna State governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero and his Taraba State counterpart, Alhaji Sani Danladi, yesterday, presented their 2015 budget proposals totalling N301,019, 964,298 to their state Houses of Assembly for consideration and approval.

Yero budgeted N203,700,855,271 out of which N130,912,013,495, representing about 64.28 per cent was for capital expenditure while N72,788,841,776, representing   about 35.72 per cent of the total budget is for recurrent expenses.

The Taraba State Acting Governor, Alhaji Sani Danladi also presented a budget of 97,319,103,027, saying that its focus was to ensure the completion of some key projects started by the administration with few critical initiatives.

The budget includes recurrent expenditure of N42,652,509,453 while N53,300,985,274 was allocated to capital expenditure.

However, giving a breakdown of his budget, Yero said that Works and Transport received the highest allocation of N29.4 billion followed by Education with N20.5 billion.

Other key sectors include; Water Supply- N16.8 billion, Health- N12.2 billion and Agriculture – N7.17 billion.

Speaking during the ceremony, Yero said that, the proposal tagged “Budget of Consolidation and Continuity” was based on government’s genuine determination to ensure the completion of all ongoing projects.

“Completion of all ongoing roads projects in 2015 is our number one priority in this sector as doing so will facilitate the movement of goods and people for the economic growth of our dear state.”

Also speaking on the performance of this year’s budget, Danladi said it was a dangerous trend in the development effort of the state.

“We should resolve to change the trend. The state had budgeted the sum of N83,355,337,529 for its services during the year but the provisional figures as at September 2014 shows that our total receipt from all sources stood at N50,924,392,058, out of which N40,771,878,992 has been expended on recurrent issues while the balance of 10,152,513,066 is on capital projects,”he said.

He asked all stakeholders in the state to join hands with him for the projected estimate to be realised.

“I acknowledge that at this period of our economic life, it will take a lot of hard work, great sacrifice and tremendous discipline for us to achieve our targets but I have no doubt that with collective commitment to the cause of the development of our state, we shall achieve the targets,” he added.