From Tunde Bolaji, Minna
The Niger State House of Assembly has passed the 2016 appropriation bill with an increment of N10.3 billion to the total expenditure provision of the budget.
The budget presented to the House of Assembly by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello was N74.7 billion while the budget appropriated by the House is N85 billion.
An estimated expenditure of N74,744,151,131 made up of N39,501,796,081 as recurrent expenditure and N35,242,355,032 as capital expenditure was proposed for consideration and approval while the House recommended an expenditure of N85,092,122,133 made up of recurrent expenditure of N41, 433,666,593 and capital expenditure of N43,658,455,540.
Giving reasons for the increment, Chairman, House Committee on Planning and Appropriation, Honourable Muhammad Lokogoma, said that the committee critically looked into various sources of revenue and discovered that there were areas of improvement in the Internally Generated Revenue.
He said that additional N10 million could be generated from NSTA, N3 million can be generated from city metro bus service, N6 million can be generated from mining activities in the state, N5 million can be generated from the water board and N35 million from telecom mast and new mast clearance form.
Lokogoma also said that out of N100 billion withdrawn from the consolidated revenue account, N50 billion has been verified to be unaccounted for, stating that the sum of N15.7 billion is recommended for IGR as against the N9.3 billion projected.
The Committee observed with dismay the over expenditure and extra-budgetary expenditure in the 2015 budget without recourse to the legislature, stressing that this would not be tolerated in the 2016 budget as all MDAs would make quarterly presentations to the House.
The House then called on the executive to ensure that budgets were presented to the legislature early to ensure proper scrutiny and timely passage adding that the submission resulted in hasty scrutiny to ensure speedy passage.
Speaker, Niger State House of Assembly, Rt. Honourable Ahmed Marafa, after the passage of the bill said that the budget was thoroughly scrutinized page by page and sector by sector to give Nigerlites a budget that they could be proud of.
He then directed the Clerk to prepare copies and pass same to the governor for his assent.
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