Sule presents N109.8b 2022 budget to state Assembly

• Taraba passes appropriation bill into law, extols Danjuma at 84
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has presented a budget N109.8 billion for the 2022 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly.

Sule while presenting the budgets said that N70.8 billion representing 64.56 per cent is earmarked for recurrent expenditure, while N38.9 billion or 35.44 per cent of the budget is earmarked for capital expenditure.

Sule tagged it Budget of Sustainable Transformation and that it is expected to focus on completion of projects that would further develop the state’s economy and infrastructure.

The governor also submitted a list of 15 commissioner nominees to the House of Assembly for screening and confirmation as members of the State Executive Council.

Speaker of the House of Assembly, Abdullahi Balarabe, who received the budget, assured the state of speedy consideration of the budget estimates.

He announced this after the House Leader, Umar Tanko Tunga, read the governor’s letter during plenary yesterday in Lafia.

He urged the nominees to submit 25 copies of their curriculum vitae to the House on or before Tuesday, December 14, 2021 and to appear for screening and confirmation on Wednesday, December 15, 2021.

Sule also requested the House to approve an additional Special Adviser through a letter read by the Speaker at plenary.

MEANWHILE, the Taraba State House of Assembly, yesterday, passed the 2022 Appropriation Bill, raising the total estimates from the proposed N146.7 billion to N149.7 billion, an increase of about N3 billion.

Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku had presented the Budget of Consolidation and Hope to the House of Assembly on November 19, 2021.

The passage of the bill followed a motion by Majority Leader of the House, Captain Doglas Ndase and adopted at plenary presided over by the Speaker, Joseph Albasu Kunini.

The motion followed acceptance of the report of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, which was earlier presented by its Chairman, Mohammed Abdulkareem.

Explaining how members of the House scrutinised all submissions made by various groups, he said the lawmakers decided to raise the budget due to the need for government to ensure that pension and gratuities were paid promptly to encourage civil servants in the state.

The committee also charged the state government to ensure timely completion of projects adding that some projects kept appearing on the budgets for several years.

Earlier at plenary, the members extolled the virtues of former Minister of Defence, General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.) on his 84th birthday.

They honoured Danjuma with a minute’s standing ovation, describing him as an asset, not only to Taraba and Nigeria, but the entire world and urged all Nigerians to eschew their religious, ethnic and political differences and emulate the octogenarian.