Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani-Bello on Wednesday signed into law the 2018 appropriation bill.
The legislature approved a budget size of N134.28 billion as against N128.01 billion presented by the Executive last December.
The budget which was signed at the Council Chamber of Government House, Minna has an increase of N6.27 billion.
Tagged “the people’s budget, the breakdown showed that the recurrent expenditure of the budget is pegged at N53.2 billion, while the capital expenditure will gulp N81.4 billion, as against the initial size of N52.15 billion for recurrent expenditure and the N75.85 billion for capital expenditure presented.
“We have deliberately tagged this year’s budget as ‘The People’s Budget’, because our administration aims at deploying resources to those projects that have greater impacts on our people using our shared vision with unlimited opportunities,” he said.
Governor Sani-Bello said that the cordial relationship existing between the executive and the legislative arm was key to the quick passage of the bill.
He said that even though they do have their differences sometimes, he believed it was the normal process on how things ought to be, seeing as separation of power in government.
The Governor then assured the people of the state of his readiness to swing into action by implementing the fiscal policy adding that government machinery will work at full force now that the budget has been passed by ensuring that most projects are carried out before the end of the year.
“The government machinery will work at full force, we have no excuse to fail. We have lost few months due to nobody’s fault. We will try and make it up before the end of the year.”
“We have deliberately tagged this year’s budget as ‘The People’s Budget’, because our administration aim at deploying resources to those projects that have greater impacts on our people using our shared vision with unlimited opportunities,” he said.
According to him, the 2018 budget is a product of wider consultations and findings base on the needs of the people.
“We decided to focus the 2018 budget on what the people want and not what we think they want. I believe there will be more impact on 2018 budget because the whole idea is to provide for what the people want that is exactly what we are going to do by God’s grace”, he said.
He assured every Nigerlites of that the 2019 appropriation bill will be submitted to the state assembly in the last quarter of the year for quick passage thereby calling of the Ministry of Budget and Planning to ensure that the budget is ready at an appropriate time. .
While presenting the approved appropriation bill to the Governor for signing, Speaker of Niger State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ahmed Marafa Guni said that the executive and legislatures have enjoyed a harmonious working relationship.
He noted that since the advent of Governor Sani- Bello’s administration the budget pattern has change where the capital expenditure was now more than the recurrent expenditure a deviation of what was witnessed in the past.
The speaker said that 60 percent of the budget will go for capital projects while 40 percent would be spent on recurrent expenditure.
“This is a significant progress that the governor want to deliver dividends of democracy to the people, a deviation from the past regimes where the recurrent was higher than the capital”, he said.
He assured that the legislative will carryout their oversight functions and ensure that the 2018 budget surpasses the 75 percent level achievement recorded by the 2017 budget.
The speaker said that they increased the 2018 budget with N6b as a result of some employment carried out which were not included in the 2018 budget presented when the bill was first presented to them in December 2017.
