Governor Nasir el-Rufai on Tuesday presented the 2022 draft budget of N233 billion to Kaduna State House of Assembly, with a capital expenditure of N146 billion and recurrent expenditure of N87.6 billion.
Giving a further breakdown of the N233 billion budget estimate, the governor said it has a capital to recurrent ratio of 63% : 37%. He added that the 2022 estimates are slightly smaller than the 2021 budget of N237.52bn, which had N157.56bn as capital and N79.96bn recurrent expenditure, a 66% to 34% capital to recurrent ratio.
Speaking during the presentation of the draft budget at the Lugard Hall, El-Rufai further stated that the priorities of the 2022 estimates are on Education, Infrastructure and Healthcare.
“Most of the capital spending will be in the Economic and Social Sectors, in keeping faith with our governance agenda. We propose to devote 76.8% of the capital budget to schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, including housing.
“Capital spending on Education is N68.4 billion (29%) and for Health N35.1 billion (15%). Devoting N115 billion to these critical sectors demonstrates continuity in our emphasis on Education and Health as the key drivers of human capital development, and investments in infrastructure as essentials to promoting economic competitiveness, support job creation and advance the well-being of our people. .
El-Rufai, who commended Kaduna State House of Assembly for the close partnership that has enabled his government innovate and drive progressive outcomes in the state, said that they will ‘’ensure that the urban renewal programme, the largest ever infrastructure investments in Kaduna state will be completed, along with initiatives in the health and education sectors”. .
Recalling some achievements of the last six years, the Governor said, “with your kind support, we have the necessary legislation to anchor our governance innovations. Enacting the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM) law has enabled our state to introduce a revolution in Nigeria by adopting electronic voting for the local government elections of September 2021 and May 2018. .
“KADSIECOM law is among the over 100 new laws enacted since 2015 to institutionalise reforms in public finances, procurement, taxation, child welfare and protection, investment promotion, scholarships, youth capacity building and residency, among others. “Our administration also focused on maintaining our credentials as one of the foremost investment destinations in Nigeria, attracting $2.8 billion in investments and pledges. We recently hosted the sixth edition of KADInvest, this concluded with the commissioning of the tomato processing plant of Tomato Jos, one of the investors in the agriculture sector in our state,’’ he added.
