Kwara House passes N160b 2017 budget

The Kwara state House of Assembly has passed the 2017 appropriation bill of N160.9 billion into law with an increase of N25,635,858,556 representing 18.95 per cent of the original sum of N135,264,529,461 billion.

Speaking during the House proceedings on Tuesday, the Kwara Speaker, Dr Ali Ahmad, said the budget was increased to N160, 900, 388, 017 billion to cater for N90 billion capital and N70 billion recurrent expenditures of 56 per cent and 44 per cent of the budget outlay respectively.

The Speaker said that a well executed N90 billion capital expenditure, made up of construction of road networks, commissioning of International Vocational Centre, Ajase Ipo, developing satellite campuses of the state university, subsidizing community health insurance scheme, and construction of Geri Alimi underpass among others, spread across three senatorial districts of the state, would have great impact on lives of people.

He commended the people of the state for supporting government of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, saying that not many states in the federation were committing such percentage of their resources for capital expenditure.

The Speaker, who explained that the increase in the budget size should not be misconstrued as padding, said that it was a constitutional exercise.

“What is padding, when this House increased the budget of Agriculture sector from N561,141 million (0.4 per cent of budget) to N6.818 billion  or 4.24 per cent of the total budget, which is relatively closer to the 10 per cent recommendation of Food and Agricultural Organization FAO Maputo declaration 2004 for sub Saharan African countries compared to N89.684 million in 2016.

“There was no padding, we were just doing our duty, when we increased the budget of the Education sector, including bursaries and scholarship for indigent students, from N29.936 billion to N32.752 billion of the budget, which makes it closer to the 24 per cent UNICEF recommendation for developing countries. The Health sector was jacked up to N26.402 billion surpassing the African Union Abuja Declaration 2001 recommendations of 15 per cent.

“Padding was never in our mind when we reduced budget of the Kwara House by N146.746 million”, he said.

The Speaker also said that members of the House had gone into agriculture to encourage farming business among people in the state, saying that 250 hectares of land had been acquired in Moro local government area of the state for mechanised agriculture.