From: Agaju Madugba, Katsina
The Katsina State House of Assembly has passed the state’s N140 billion 2017 budget with a capital expenditure of N96.357 billion and recurrent expenditure of N43.8 billion.
This followed the adoption of the amendments to the budget as presented by Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Alhaji Hambali Faruk.
Faruk said that there were few amendments to sections of the original budget estimates earlier proposed by Governor Aminu Bello Masari and expressed hope that the 2017 fiscal year holds more prospects in terms of budget revenue.
Compared to the 2016 which he said recorded a 75 per cent revenue performance Faruk noted that the current budget has an opening balance of over N24 billion including N20 billion being a refund from the Paris Club and other miscellaneous revenues.
The Speaker, Alhaji Abubakar Yahaya, directed the Clerk of the House to transmit the document to the Governor for his assent and subsequent implementation.
Tagged “Budget of Stabilization,” Masari had put the total recurrent revenue to finance the budget at N75.6 billion comprising of N10.8 billion as internally generated revenue, N8.6 billion as other internal revenues and N56.1 billion as revenue receivable through the Federation Account.
According to the governor, in line with the Transformation Agenda of his administration, education, health, water resources, agriculture, environment, works, housing and transport will continue to get government’s attention in the allocation of funds and execution of policies in the course of implementation of the budget.