Assembly jerks up 2018 budget to N138.6bn

The Jigawa State House of Assembly yesterday passed the 2018 budget estimate after increasing it to N138.6billion, higher than initial estimate by N4.5 billion.

The State Governor Muhammed Badaru Abubakar had presented N134.17 billion as 2018 proposed appropriation bill to the Assembly in November last year when he had said the proposed estimate tagged, ‘Budget of Sustained Economic Growth and Social Transformation,’, was slightly above the 2017 budget by about ‎3.3 percent.

He said N67.035 billion, accounting for about 50% of the total expected income, was for capital expenditure.

He stated that in line with his administration’s policies, N9.3 billion was for agriculture and livestock development. He had also disclosed that education had N17.7 billion, representing about 26.4 percent of the total capital budget.