El Rufai signs Kaduna 2019 budget

Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has signed N157.44bn as the budget Kaduna into law on Friday.

The budget signed into law is more than the N155.86bn the governor proposed to the Kaduna State House of Assembly on August 15.

The signed budget has a 60:40 capital to recurrent ratio with the expenditure at N94.47bn, while recurrent expenditure is N62.97bn.

While signing the budget, El-Rufai praised the newly-established tradition of passing and signing the state budget in the preceding year and cited the partnership between the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the Executive Branch as the reason for the tradition.

Since El-Rufai became the governor, the annual budget has been signed into law before the 1st of January.

“In 2019, for the fourth straight year, the new financial year for the Kaduna State Government will begin on the first day of January. This alignment of the fiscal and calendar year for the budget of the state government is being extended to the budget of the 23 local govts…,” the governor said.

He spotlighted his government’s devotion to human capital development where education and health take 41% of the budget. He noted that while the overall budget size is reduced compared to previous years, the allocation committed to human capital development does not reduce.

“Reflecting our commitment to human capital development, the Social Sector, including Education and Health takes up N39.14bn or 41% of the N94bn capital budget. Education has a capital budget of N25.4bn, while Health has N13.1bn, a concrete way to promote equality of opportunity,” El-Rufai said

“We remain resolute in implementing our education reforms which aim to improve the quality of education offered in our public schools. For many of us, government schools gave us the education that enabled us to rise above the circumstances of our birth.

“We owe the children of ordinary people a duty to restore public education as a lever for social mobility.”

The governor also signed N62.34bn for the 2019 budget of the 23 Local Government Councils.

During the signing of the local government budget, the governor remarked that it was important for the local government councils to begin the financial year on the first day of 2019.

“For the first time in the history of Kaduna State, we are signing the annual budgets for the state government and the 23 local government councils on the same date. This means that our local government councils will also begin the financial year on the first day of the new year.”