Kano state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has proposed a N245billion appropriation bill for the 2023 fiscal year with the education sector getting the highest allocation.
The governor, who tagged the budget proposal as “Budget of consolidation and prosperity 2”, said the education sector has been allocated N62billion representing 27% of budget size, which is above the 25% target set by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
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He revealed that capital expenditure will gulp N144bn in the budget representing 59% while recurrent expenditure was pegged at N100.9billion (representing 41%) with payment of salaries and allowances to civil servants and political appointees gulping N71billion while payment of overhead and other recurrent expenditures was pegged at N29.5billion.
On how the state intends to generate the revenue for the budget, Ganduje said recurrent revenue has been pegged at N185.8billion with
N38bn expected to come from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) while statutory allocation and Value Added Tax (VAT) are expected to cough out N147bn. The recurrent expenditure is higher by N38billion compared to that of 2022 representing 26.53% increase.
The governor also revealed that other means of financing the budget would be N20billion from grants and N23billion from foreign and domestic loans while the opening balance would be N15billion.
In the sectoral allocation, health sector is expected to get N39.1bn for projects and programmes with N500m dedicated for the completion of the ongoing cancer centre project; N1.2bn for procurement of medical equipment; N500m for establishment of nutritional rehabilitation centre; N450m for renovation of health training institutions; N500m for renovation of secondary health institutions; N500m for routine immunization as well as N709m for malaria control programme, among others.
In the education sector which got N62billion, N2.3billion has been set aside for boarding school feeding; N2.4billion for free education; N2bn for girl-child education; and N22.3bn for capital projects and programmes in tertiary institutions.
The governor also intended to spend N15billion on water supply; N35billion on works and infrastructure; N19.9billion on Agriculture; Rural community development to get N3.995billion; Transportation to get N8.67billion while Security, Law and Justice is expected to get N12.8billion.
He said the administration in 2023 would focus on provision of free and compulsory education; Reform of Almajiri system of education; Security; Inclusive infrastructure; Agriculture; Fight against corruption; Health; Skills acquisition programme; and encourage Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement among others.
Responding, the speaker of the house, Hamisu Chidari, assured that the lawmakers would immediately swing to action to pass the budget in good time to help the state keep to his January to December budget cycle.
