Masari weeps as he presents final budget

Gov. Aminu Masari of Katsina State on Tuesday wept while presenting the final budget of his administration to the state House Assembly.

Our correspondent reports that the government proposed over N288.63 billion as the state’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year.

The proposal tagged, ‘Budget of Transition’, earmarked 63.77% as capital expenditure and 36.23% for recurrent services.

Masari said, “In aggregate terms, the 2023 budget is lower than that of the 2022 revised budget by N34, 662, 962, 998.00.

“The 2023 budget is structured with a total recurrent expenditure of N104,580,485,996.28, which is equivalent to 36.23 per cent of the total budget.

“And capital expenditure of N184,052,771,966.72, which is 63.77 per cent of the total budget.”

He said the budget would be financed from the Opening Balance of N12.06 billion, N62.59 billion Internally Generated Revenue, and over N119 billion expected from the Federation Account.

“It is important to note that the 2023 recurrent revenue has increased by 7.33% over that of the 2022 revised budget.

“And the capital expenditure in the 2023 budget has decreased by 20.92% due to a drop in capital receipts.”

He explained that N138.163 billion of the capital estimates would finance projects under the government restoration plan.

The governor said that the plan was in the area of Education, Health, Water Resources, Agriculture, Environment, Works, Housing and Transport sectors.

“As a result, therefore, the 2023 budget has provided adequate allocation of funds to the priority sectors of the state government (Capital) as follows:

“Environment N31,748,186,500.00, Water Resources N29,207,394,335.00, Health N23,974,614,962.00, Works N20,995,858,882.00, Education N18,632,987,897.00, and Agriculture N13,604,292,049.00.”

He said that other MDAs were allocated N45.88 billion.

The governor believed that his administration has done well “within the available resources to uplift the living standard of the people.

“I am sure posterity will judge our government on the meaningful projects, programmes and policies implemented during its tenure as government of Katsina state.”

The Speaker of the assembly, Alhaji Tasiu Maigari assured that the assembly would speed up the approval of the budget.