El-Rufai signs N214b 2017 budget into law

Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, on Tuesday, signed into law the 2017 budget of N214 billion for the fiscal year, after its approval by the State House of Assembly.

Besides, the Kaduna House of Assembly was the first among the 36 states of the Federation to have passed the 2017 budget into law.

The total budget size of N214.9 billion, made up of N83.46 billion for recurrent spending and N131.45 billion in capital expenditure, according to the governor, represents “a capital to recurrent ratio of 61:39.”

El-Rufai, while signing the appropriation bill into law at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, Kaduna, also announced that the state had received the Paris Club refund from the Federal Government, which would be used to clear six years pension, gratuity and death benefits of retired and dead workers in the state.

Although the refund sum was not specified, the Governor El-Rufai however, said: “I wish to inform our legislators that we shall be submitting a Supplementary Budget to enable us capture the debt refunds we have just received from the Federal Government”.

“55 per cent of these funds belong to the state government, and the balance is for the local governments. We propose to apply 50 per cent of the funds to settling the inherited arrears of gratuity and death benefits for State and local government workers.”

The governor argued that “some of these unpaid arrears dated from as far back as 2010, and Dan Ndackson, the Exe- cutive Secretary of the Bureau of Pension, has done a great job of sorting out these records and we will be ready to pay once the supplementary budget is passed.

“This is unprecedented, but we are happy to clear the problems created by those before us. The balance of the funds will be dedicated to rural and urban roads,” he added.

While commending the State House of Assembly, the governor further remarked, “Our legislators actually reduced the draft estimates we presented by N1 billion when the temptation might have been to pad it.