By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Abdul’Aziz Yari of Zamfara State has budgeted N130.7 billion for the 2018 fiscal year. The Governor made this known on Monday when he presented the 2018 budget proposal to the Zamfara State House of Assembly.
According to him, the proposed amount contains N46.4 billion for recurrent expenditure and N84.3 billion for capital expenditure. This is in the ratio of 35.5%:64.5%.
He further told the state lawmakers that the proposed budget was N23 billion more than the 2017 appropriation bill.
Mr Yari also disclosed that next year, the state government expects from the Federal Government, refund of N56.97 billion used to reconstruct federal roads across the state, spanning over 610 kilometres.
“By the end of August, the 2017 Budget performance in both revenue and expenditure stood at 57.39 percent and this indicates that the sum of over N66.2 billion was expended from January to August 2017.
“Within the same period under review, the recurrent expenditure to the tune of over N34.8 billion was carried out, while the capital expenditure to the tune of over N30.6 billion was also carried out,” he said.
Mr Yari said the economic sector which consists of agriculture, livestock, forestry, manufacturing, power-supply, transport, commerce, cooperatives and finance received N33.4 billion with transport having the highest sum of N20.8 billion.
“While the social sector which included education, health, information, youth and social welfare got N21.34 billion, education received the highest allocation of N13.32 billion followed by health with N5.1 billion.
The Governor added that the environment Sector was allocated N22.1 billion to carter for water, drainages, housing, town planning and community development with town planning taking the highest allocation of N15.8 billion.
“Let me clarify that in the course of implementation of the 2018 budget, we expect refund of the monies expended by Zamfara State Government for reconstruction of Federal Roads across the state, spanning over 610 kilometres. The road projects cost the State Government a total sum of N56.97 billion,” he said.
Adedapo Adesanya