Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Muhammed has presented a budget of N167 billion for the 2020 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.
Speaking during the presentation, he said the amount comprised of recurrent expenditure of N72,615,397,214 while capital expenditure received the sum of N94,600,410,286.
Muhammed explained that the sum of N102,474,311,276 was estimated as recurrent revenue made up of Internally Generated Revenue and Statutory Allocation while for the recurrent expenditure, government estimated the sum of N72,615,397,214 comprising of personnel cost, overhead cost and consolidated revenue.
The Governor said the year 2020 budget was prepared on the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and assured that government will continue to use it because of its flexibility and compliance with the State Fiscal Responsibility Law 2009.
He said that his administration had, in the course of the preparation of the 2020 budget, considered achieving a recurrent to capital expenditure ratio, create efficiencies in personnel and overhead expenditure to free resources for development, growth of IGR by a minimum of at least 20 percent per year.
Muhammed said the budget will pay attention to priority areas of Health, Education, Agriculture, Youth Empowerment, Job Creation and Community Development, Poverty reduction through the establishment of small scale enterprises, mining, tourism and cooperative development.
Other areas are the provision of Infrastructure through the construction and rehabilitation of roads both urban and rural as well as water supply, sanitation and hygiene, he added.
Responding, Speaker, Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Y Sulaiman, pledged that the lawmakers will ensure speedy passage of the budget.
“You should direct MDAs in the state to provide the needed information in defence of their budgets, before the relevant House Committees in order to ensure the smooth passage of the fiscal estimates,” he added.
