Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno on Wednesday presented a budget of N183.8 billion to the state House of Assembly for 2017 fiscal year.
Shettima described the Appropriation Bill as budget for“Consolidating Restoration and Rebirth.”
The governor said that the 2017 budget was 15.37 per cent higher than the 2016 budget.
” This is because the assumptions and expectations of the economic performance this year as rationally thought out are more favourable,”he said
Shettima said that the budget would be financed from envisaged internally generated revenue of N29.2 billion and allocation from the Federation Account of N117 billion.
“The capital expenditure is put at N124.1billion, while the recurrent expenditure is put at N59.6 billion.
” The 2017 budget size is more than that of 2016 including virement and special warrant by N24.4 billion.
“While that of Federal Government is 19.95% higher than 2016 budget due to increase in revenue from Federation Account as a result of relative improvement from crude oil price in the international market and expected improvement from locally generated revenue as a result of relative peace achieved.
“This year’s budget was purposely designed to actively pursue the strategic policy initiatives of the state government in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the thousands of structures destroyed by the insurgents and the ultimate return of all our IDPs to their respective homes, latest by May, 2017.
“In view of this, the sum N13 billion is allocated to the ministry of RRR to continue with the massive reconstruction and rehabilitation of towns and villages and all critical infrastructure in the liberated local government areas for gradual return and resettlement of all IDPs,” he said.
Shettima said about N24.5 billion was earmarked for the education sector and meant for rehabilitation and reconstruction of facilities at secondary and tertiary level.
“Agricultural sector is allocated the sum of N7 billion to provide the enabling environment for food production, maintenance of plantation sites and introduction of new crop varieties to our farmers.
“While N19.5 billion was allocated for the the health sector to enable them provide effective health care services.
“The amount would also cover reconstruction/rehabilitation of all destroyed hospitals and health centres in all the local government areas across the state,”he said.
“On our part, we are going to effectively key into all economic measures, regulations and policies put in place at the centre and also increase our internal revenue generation profile, blocking all leakages effectively to reduce the cost of governance.
” Our budet is therefore realistic, implementable and our goals are realizable,” Shettima said. (NAN)