By Sadiq Abubakar
Maiduguri
Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe state has presented N88.93 billion budget of “reconstruction and self-reliance” to State House of Assembly with an increase of 10 percent over last year’s appropriation bill of N80.6 billion.
Presenting the Appropriation and Financial bills at the weekend, Gaidam said that this year’s policy thrust was to strengthen existing structures that could move the state towards economic growth and development.
He said out of the total budgetary proposals, the recurrent expenditures took the lion’s share of N47.79 billion, while capital expenditures gulped N41.14 billion or 46 per cent.
He said the budget will be implemented from the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) of N3.59 billion with Statutory Allocations of N38.5 billion, including SURE-P, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Internal Loans of N35.58 billion.
On this year’s budget increase, Gaidam said: “Our decision to increase our budget proposal is to enable us get more funds to execute more projects aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens. It is also based on the optimism that our financial situation would improve for the better in the years ahead.”
He, however, noted: “Other areas that will be given serious attention include avoidance of unnecessary expenditures and waste by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). This will also plug revenue leakages, check corruption as well as prioritizing our development needs.”
Out of the 13 economic and social sectors’ allocations, works and transport took the lion’s share of N18.924 billion, while education was earmarked the sum of N17.143 billion.
Health, finance and agriculture, got N10.4 billion, N14.44 billion and N5.72 billion, respectively.
Responding, the Speaker of the House, Alhaji Adamu Dala Dogo also assured the governor that the 2016 budget will be considered inclusively, participatory, transparent and accountable to the people that voted them into office.
“The Assembly is aware that currently, we are being faced with dwindling government revenues from the Federation Accounts, which is eavily dependent on the price of oil that is falling at the international market.
