Governor Nasir El Rufai has aligned the fiscal year of Kaduna state with the calendar year, by submitting budget proposals on time to the state assembly since he assumed office.
A press statement issued by the governor’s spokesman, Samuel Aruwan Thursday, said that El Rufai has been receiving a lot of commendations for submitting the 2019 budget estimates to the state assembly on Wednesday, about four months to the end of 2018.
According to the statement, the four month period will enable Kaduna State House of Assembly to make wherever adjustments it deems necessary before the end of the year.
The governor’s spokesman also described the legislative arm of government as “a worthy partner in the task of making Kaduna state great again.”
It will be recalled that Governor El Rufai had presented a revenue and expenditure estimates of N155.8 billion, tagged “Budget of Continuity”, to the state assembly on Wednesday. The proposal is made up of N62.3 billion recurrent expenditure and N93.5 billion capital expenditure.
Highlighting the 2019 budget estimates, Aruwan pointed out that “it was based on the zero-budget principle and it maintains a propoportion of 60% to 40% capital and recurrent expenditures respectively.”
The spokesman also noted that education and health sectors were allocated 27.15% and 15.02% of the proposal respectively.
The statement reiterated that the allocation of a huge chunk of the 2019 budget to education and health sectors “underscores El Rufai’s commitment to promoting equal opportunity, human capital development and improving infrastructure in Kaduna state.”
The statement further pointed out that “El Rufai has been consistent in submitting draft budgets to the state assembly on time, reducing the cost of governance and shifting priority to capital investments as well as human capital development since he assumed office.
“In 2015, His Excellency, Malam Nasir El Rufai presented the 2016 budget estimates to Kaduna State House of Assembly in October, four months after assuming office, ” the statement recalled.
According to Aruwan, the governor has maintained this tradition and the allocation of more resources to capital expenditure, including the social sector, since 2015.