Paul Omokuvie, Bauchi
Governor Mohammed Abubabakar of Bauchi State has earmarked the sum of N196, 722, 411, 436 as proposed budget for the 2019 fiscal year.
The governor presented the budget christened ‘Budget of Continuity’ to the Bauchi State House of Assembly, on Thursday.
Governor Abubakar said the budget was made up of a total Capital Expenditure stood at N117, 525, 434 representing 60% while the Recurrent Expenditure of N79, 196, 977, 119 represents 40 per cent.
Giving a breakdown of the budget at a press conference in his office, Commissioner of State Planning Commission, Magaji Dambam, said that the budget was predicated on the assumption of oil price output of 2.3 million barrels per day, a benchmark of oil price of US$60 per barrels and an exchange rate of N305 to the US$.
Dambam said that under the Capital Expenditure the Economic Sector will gulp the highest with N57, 358, 927, 214, the Social Sector also gulps N41, 755, 750, 315.
He added that the Administrative Sector will get N10, 578, 827, 206 while the Regional and Law and Justice Sectors got N5, 506, 151, 972 and N2, 325, 777, 611, respectively.
READ ALSO: 2019: Borno PDP crisis deepens
For the Recurrent Expenditure, Dambam said Personnel Cost will gulp N35, 309, 207, 097, Recurrent Services has N6, 672, 841, 866.
According to the Commissioner, the government is expecting N65, 057, 024, 168 as Statutory Allocation/Excess Crude from the federal government and Value Added Tax of N21, 861, 483, 877.
He said that the government will also finance the budget with Refund from Statutory and Other Sources Aids and Grants and Independent Revenue of N21, 474,838, 698, N20, 723, 382, 525 and N17, 141, 580, 525 respectively.
He added that Capital Receipts stands at N13, 533, 450, 000.
The Commissioner told newsmen that the Education Sector had the highest allocation of N41, 472, 337, 266 representing 21.8%of the total budget.
He said that the sum of N31, 326, 287, 433 which represents 16.02% was allocated to the Health Sector.
The Agriculture Sector, according to him, was allocated N10, 791, 551, 005 representing 6%.
“Government intends to build 500 kilometer of Rural Roads across the state in 2019, through the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP),” he said.