2021 Budget: Ganduje Presents N147.93bn Expenditure To State Assembly

The Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, on Tuesday presented a proposed budget of N147.93bn for the 2021 fiscal period to the State House of Assembly.

The Governor while presenting the appropriation bill before the State Assembly said the budget reflects his vision for diversification of the revenue of the State.

He said the budget would enable his government to lay a solid foundation to tackle unemployment and grow the economy in a sustainable manner.

Giving a breakdown of the revenue parameters, the Governor estimated the total revenue to be generated during the period at N106.12bn.

This is made up of N24bn as Internally Generated Revenue, and N52.25bn as revenue from the Federation Account while Value Added Tax revenue is estimated to provide the sum of N28.4bn.

In terms of expenditure, the Governor put the recurrent spending in the 2021 budget at N73.27bn. This is made up of N7.69bn as Consolidated Revenue Fund Charges, while the sum of N55.61bn was earmarked for personnel costs. The balance of N9.97bn, according to the Governor, would be spend on overhead items.

The 2021 budget proposal also has a provision of N74.66bn for capital projects, which represents an increase of N14.17bn over the amount provided in the 2020 budget.

The Governor explained that the focus of the budget will be the integration of Almajiri system of education, security, food security, health, empowerment programmes, skills acquisition and public private partnership, among others.

He said the Education sector was allocated the sum of N37bn which is 25 per cent of the total budget, while health care was allocated N25bn, representing 17 per cent of the budget size.

He added that over N3bn is earmarked for the take-off of Kano light train project, while Housing and Transport got N3bn.

Ganduje said, “Having laid down the foundation for the implementation of policies and programmes of our administration in the last ten months, we intend to commit our energy and resources to the pursuit of major projects and programmes in the 2021 fiscal year.”

Responding ,the Speaker of the House of Assembly ,Hon. Abdullaziz Garba Gafasa said the COVID -19 pandemic has forced the 2021 proposed budget to be lower than that of 2020 .

He pledged the commitment of the lawmakers to ensure speedy action on the proposed budget.

He also urged all ministries and agencies to be ready for their budget defence during legislative scrutiny of the budget.