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Amid debt burden, Kano vows to invest in health, education

By Murtala Adewale, Kano
12 January 2023   |   2:02 am
Kano State’s fiscal policy for 2023 has captured huge investment on welfare of residents, especially on healthcare, education, infrastructure among others in the state.

Education. Photo: GOOGLE

Kano State’s fiscal policy for 2023 has captured huge investment on welfare of residents, especially on healthcare, education, infrastructure among others in the state.

The state government stated, yesterday, that over N1.2 billion would be dispensed to mitigate high rate of mortality arising from malaria as well as epidemic preparedness and response this year.

While the malaria control mechanism got over N709 million, government said N400 million would be spent on epidemic preparedness and response. Additional N500 million was earmarked for the completion of the cancer treatment centre scheduled for commissioning soon.

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje signed the over N268 billion budget for 2023 into law with the ratio of capital expenditure to recurrent put at 59:41. However, the government will be funding the 2023 budget with over N23.5 billion from foreign and domestic loans.

Already, N125.196 billion (domestic) and $109.43 million (foreign) debts are hanging on the state government, a data published by Debt Management Office (DMO) captured.

Briefing journalists on Tuesday, the Commissioner for Planning and Budget, Ibrahim Gwarzo, said N39.5 billion (15 per cent) is dedicated to health in line with the Abuja Declaration.

According to the commissioner, the over N194 billion recurrent estimated revenue for 2023 consists of over N40 billion from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and over N154 billion from federal allocation. This is a 22 per cent increase compared to the 2022 budget.

The commissioner, who disclosed that the approved estimate exceeded the state’s projected resources as contained in the 2023-2025 Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU), stressed on government’s renewed plan to explore potential areas of internal revenue generation.

He explained the focus on implementation of Minimum Service Package (MSP) investment plan, routine immunisation, free maternal and children health and upgrade of health institutions.

On education, Gwarzo highlighted that N4.8 billion devoted to implementation of free and compulsory education policy and boarding schools feeding programme, out of N69.8 billion allocated to education.

Reacting to how government plans to fund the approved fiscal policy considering the low performance of the 2022 appropriation, the commissioner explained that there is no cause for alarm, harping on the ingenuity of the revenue board to explore new areas to raise revenue.

Although, the state is struggling to generate N2 billion IGR monthly, a figure far below the expected target, the 2023 revenue from IGR is benchmarked at over N3 billion monthly.

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