Bauchi to construct 1, 000km roads in 2018

By Najib Sani
Bauchi

Bauchi state government has disclosed plans to construct 1, 000 kilometers of rural roads across the 20 local governments of the state this year.
Permanent Secretary of the state Planning Commission, Yahuza Adamu Haruna, who made the disclosure at the weekend while presenting the breakdown of the 2018 state budget, explained that governor Mohammed Abubakar had proposed a budget of N167 billion for this year, out of which 18.8 per cent, amounting to N31.5 billion was deployed to education sector.
He said the 2018 budget was basically focused on six priority areas of the present administration, including health, agriculture, education, sanitation and water supply, youth and women empowerment and infrastructural development.
According to him, the intervention that would be carried out in the education sector included renovation and reconstruction of a lot of primary and secondary schools, training and retraining of staff, provision of equipment and construction of ICT centres among others.
“Because of the intervention in this sector, the number of students that passed the national exams rose from 3.37 per cent in 2015 to 17 per cent in 2016 and 27 per cent in 2017,” he said.
Giving a further breakdown of the 2018 budget, the sum of over N25.5 billion, representing 15.23 per cent was allocated to the health sector, which according to him, showed government commitment to the sector.
He said the planned interventions in the health sector in 2018 included the implementation of the five-health point agenda and establishment of the state healthcare insurance agency.
Others include provision of 1 per cent of the entire state Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) for basic health care delivery, fulfilling all national and international health partnership agreements as well as implementation of the national policy guidelines for primary healthcare under one roof.
The Permanent secretary explained that the budget christened “Budget of Consolidation” will invest massively in infrastructural revolution as well as human capital development.

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