Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has presented a budget of N147, 827,854,494 to the State House of Assembly for the 2018 fiscal year.
The 2018 budget is N44, 429,890,029 or 24.01% lesser than the N185, 057,744,523 Revised Budget of the year 2017 that he presented to the Assembly. Among other reasons; the Governor said inherent in the reduction is a tactical move to match new indicators released by the World Bank which will determine access to budget support funding.
Christened “Budget of Sustainable Growth,” the Governor noted that the budget was estimated based on the assumption that the revenue sharing formula would improve with respect to the Statutory Allocation and Value Added Tax (VAT) as well as continued institutional strengthening of internally generated revenue collection in the State in collaboration with the Local Government Councils.
Other assumptions, according to the governor include, “that there would be a total blockage of all leakages in internal revenue generation by MDAs and remitting of same into Government Treasury Single Account and there would be continuation of the financial management reforms embarked upon with the implementation of the Fiscal Sustainability Plan.”
He also assumed that the political and economic climate of Nigeria and particularly of Kogi State shall remain stable with all forms of insecurity almost eliminated during fiscal year 2018 to make business environment safer even as he hopes that the exchange rate of the naira ($305.00) and the benchmark of oil price ($45.00) as proposed by the Federal Government is attained and sustained.
The Governor allocated the sum of N63,829,361,233 for recurrent expenditure, and increased the amount to N83, 998,493, 261 for capital expenditure. This could be explained by the government’s commitment to give a boost to all its capital projects in the next budget year.
According to the Governor, “this Budget Of Sustainable Growth is of course a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the New Direction Blueprint of this Administration. It will consolidate our progress by prioritizing government spending on Education, Health, Infrastructure and Untilities, Job Creation and Youth Empowerment as well as Civil Service and Pension Reforms. These aforementioned sectors constitute the 5 Thematic Areas around which our roadmap revolves”.
Responding, Speaker of the State Assembly, Mathew Kolawole, assured the governor that the lawmakers would immediately commence work on the budget to ensure a speedy passage soon.
He congratulated the governor for his giant stride in Agriculture especially the rice production around Omi dam, Idah and Ibaji Local Government Areas respectively. He also commended the governor’s achievement in road construction, rural electrification and human capital development.
InsideStory
