Prince Okpole Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu on Tuesday presented a budget estimate of over N98 billion to the State House of Assembly for consideration and passage ahead of the 2014 financial year.
Christened the ‘Budget of Sustainable Economic Growth’, Governor Aliyu said it is above the amount spent in the 2013 financial year by N8.8 billion.
The breakdown shows that the State will spend N98, 852,343,536.00 for both Capital and Recurrent expenditure in the 2014 fiscal year.
He said “of the amount N69,699,539,654.00 will be Statutory Allocation, while the Value Added Tax (VAT) will fetch N9,220,585,968.00 and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) N6,315,890,060.00, Capital Receipts is put at N11,000,000,000.00 and income from the Sure-P fund put at N2,616,327,854.00.
The total estimated recurrent expenditure for the year 2014 will gulp N47, 290,280,591.00 which represents 47.84% of the Budget. The recurrent expenditure comprises of Personnel cost N27,646,353,835.00; Overhead cost N12,048,690,920.00; Consolidated Revenue Charges N7,595,235,836.00.
The Capital Expenditure will gulp N51, 493,090,525.00 which is 52.16% of the budget. The sectoral allocations include Economic sector N18,324,162,104.00; General Administration N15,707,001,667.00; Social sector N11,745,270,360.00; Science and Technology N442,500,000.00″.
The highlights of the 2014 budget will be a focused on Agricultural transformation with N2,516,300,000.00 allocated to the sub-sector; the Education sub-sector has a proposed allocation of N5,142,768,221.00; Health has N3,343,834538.00.
The Speaker of the State Assembly, Adamu Usman in his address said that the lawmakers will intensify its oversight functions to ensure the MDAs comply strictly with the provisions of the 2014 Budget.
Usman assured that the House would study the provisions of the 2014 budget proposal meticulously in order to ensure its speedy passage.
His words, “The various House Committees will work doggedly to ensure that the screening is carried out in good time so that the Budget can be passed with minimum delay for its implementation to start from the very beginning of the year so as to enable the government execute its programmes and meet up with the yearning and aspirations of the people of Niger State having in mind that 2014. Is the only full year before May, 2015”.
