Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State has signed the 2022 Budget, tagged “Budget of Consolidation.”
Speaking shortly after signing the budget, Governor Yahaya said it was tagged Budget of Consolidation because his administration was going to consolidate on the gains recorded from the 2019 and 2020 budgets.
“Today, we have signed the Budget of Consolidation, meaning we shall consolidate on the change, we shall consolidate on our resilience and in Sha-Allah, what will come out of this budget will be an A+…… And I believe the outcome of our good job is really going to translate to good work, to quality service and to the upliftment of the good people of Gombe State,” Governor Yahaya said.
According to him, the results from the 2020 and 2021 budget implementation was because of the robust relations and constant engagement, as well as the understanding of the people and members of the Gombe State House of Assembly, who collated the request and demands of their various constituents.
“We went to the people, we had stakeholder engagement with the people in order to understand their basic needs and what we have been doing since we came into office in 2019,” said Governor Yahaya.
He said previous budgets since he began his tenure showed capacity, resilience and understanding because they passed through the people.
Governor Yahaya said the people of Gombe State expected a lot from the government and the ability of the authorities to maximise resources for the implementation of projects and programmes, which had a direct bearing on the lives of ordinary people.
According to him, “despite the hard times and problems that Nigeria faces in its economy, 54% of the project has been delivered to the people, but we also ensure through the good framework of prudence and accountability, that we shall deliver 55% of this budget to the good people, in terms of capital projects.”
Challenges of COVID-19
he Gombe State Governor said despite the challenges of Covid-19 and economic realities on the ground, his administration had been able to fully implement the 30 thousand naira minimum wage and had never failed since then.
He announced the payment of 1.5 billion naira on Monday for the payment of pensions and gratuities for retired civil servants in the state, as well as December Salaries for civil servants, to enable them to plan a joyous Christmas Celebration.
For the Speaker, Gombe State House of Assembly, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar Luggerewo, the ratio of capital to expenditure is encouraging, where Recurrent Expenditure was expected to be higher than capital Expenditure.
“Because of the cost of running governance and due to the advancing political activities, the government is expected to spend much and to our own surprise, the reverse is the case.
“Capital having the larger share worthy of note is the zeal of the governor to improve on the economic and social aspects of the constituents. 91.7% is of the total budget size is going to social and economic aspects, which is commendable. Precisely, 8.2%nof the total budget size is the only amount earmarked for the administrative sector, which is clearly stating that the government is going to spend less on running the government,” Mr. Luggerewo said.
He commended Governor Yahaya for the execution of the 2021 Budget, which had attained 62.8% performance by September and projected to reach 80% performance by the end of the year.
Confidence Okwuchi
