Kogi, Akwa Ibom budget N174b, N365.251b for 2017

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has presented an estimated budget of N174 billion for the 2017 fiscal year.He presented the appropriation bill to the state House of Assembly yesterday in Lokoja, the state capital.

According to the governor, the proposal was divided into a recurrent expenditure of N58, 531, 404, 254, representing 33.47% and capital expenditure of N116, 320, 140, 269, representing 66.53%.

Bello explained that N32, 181, 492, 459 of the expenditure would be financed from internal sources, while the state’s share of the federation account would generate N8, 085, 355, 569.

He added that Value Added Tax (VAT) would contribute N2, 209, 764, 229 from the exchange differentials and N3, 880, 000, 000 from budget augmentation.

He said: “The fund available for the recurrent expenditure was N81, 666, 312, 024, out of which the personnel cost for the period was put at N32, 734, 234, 264 and overhead cost at N25, 797, 169, 990. The total recurrent expenditure for the year would be N58, 531, 404, 254.”

The budget had an estimated transfer surplus of N23, 134, 907, 770 for capital development fund.Bello described the budget as a balanced estimate, because the total estimated revenue was equal to the total estimated expenditure of N174, 851, 544, 523.

The Speaker of the Assembly, Umar Imam, urged the governor to address those issues of civil servants who were yet to collect their salaries due to uncompleted Bank Verification Number (BVN)’s exercise.

Also yesterday, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, presented his budget of N365.251billion, as against the 2016’s budget of N423.000billion.

The governor said the budget of N88.425billion recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure of N193.956billion and consolidated revenue of N82.870billion, was based on an oil benchmark of $35.00 per barrel.

The bill, titled “budget of consolidation” had a total projected recurrent revenue of N175, 000billion, as against N284.666billion in the previous year.

The appropriation for capital expenditure was put at N193.956, as against the N243.000 billion in 2016.According to him, the policy thrust for 2017 would be predicted on the developmental objectives and catalysts outlined in the state’s medium-term plan’s document.

The Speaker of the state’s assembly, Mr. Onofiok Luke, lauded the budget for curbing the excesses in governance, promising that the House would pass it in the next few weeks.