Kaduna State Assembly passes Local Govt Budget with 17 percent increment

The Kaduna State House of Assembly has passed into law the budget of its 23 local government areas with an increment of 17 percent.

This was made known during today’s plenary session by the speaker of the house, Rt. Hon. Yusuf Ibrahim Zailani of Igabi Constituency.

According to the chairman house committee on budget and appropriation, Hon. Ahmad Muhammad of Zaria Kewaye constituency while presenting the report of the bill on the floor of the house, the committee observed that there is extreme over dependence on statutory allocation from the federal government of Nigeria.

“This should be discouraged and the ministry for local government should monitor closely and offer solution.”

However, Hon. Muhammad said the 17 percent increment was as a result of request from five local governments which are Soba, Birnin Gwari, Zaria, Giwa and Lere.

The increment which is less than a billion naira was granted to the local governments above because they were able to present to the house their source of revenue generation, source of income and financial report which were ascertained and approved by the house.

‘There were request from other local government areas but we did not grant them because they were unable to prove themselves worthy of the increment.’

Meanwhile the actual budget which was N64, 583, 266, 161.20k wqs amended with a recurrent of over 49.7 billion which carries 77 percent of the budget while the capital expenditure is over N14 .7 billion which carries 23 percent of the budget.

He however advised that local government council should take effective measures to allow enhancement of the internal revenue generation as through this process, the capital development of the areas will been seen .

Dominica Nwabufo