Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, on Saturday presented the draft of 166 billion naira proposed budget to stakeholders, residents and other members of the public in the state.
The budget consists of 104 billion naira as capital and 62 billion naira as recurrent components. The governor said it would be presented formally to State House of Assembly in December.
In an address to the stakeholders at General Hassan Katsina State House, Kaduna, during an emergency budget Town Hall meeting, El-Rufai revealed that the reason past governments left behind legacies of abandoned projects was because huge annual budgets were approved without being implemented.
He disclosed that previous administrations in the state reduced budgeting into a fictographic art without considerations or any relationship to reality.
The governor promised to always put the people first in all his actions, adding that the present administration is determined to make the state great again by reversing the neglect that the public interest has suffered and restore hope.
El-Rufai said in the proposed 2016 budget include one of the pro-poor programmes such as interventions in school feeding, planting of economic trees, and waste collection which are expected to create 200,000 jobs.
In his brief about the new strategy of presenting the budget to the public before the state assembly, El-Rufai said: “We have called this meeting today to present to you the broad principles informing the policy choices that are reflected in the draft 2016 budget. The budget is anchored on the commitments outlined in the Restoration Programme, the manifesto platform on which the Kaduna State APC campaigned.”
The major highlight of the 2016 Budget Proposals moved away from funding government to providing infrastructure and services to citizens, he noted that it restores the 60:40 ratio in favour of capital expenditure.
“This is in keeping with our agenda to expand access to Education, Healthcare, Jobs and Security,” he stressed.
-Emmanuel Ikechukwu
