The Niger State Government has budgeted N13.691 billion for the salaries of staff of the local government councils for the year 2018.
The Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Zakari Jikantoro, during a post-State Executive Council meeting briefing on Thursday told newsmen that a total revenue of N52,869,566,980 has been projected to finance the 2018 budget of local governments in the state.
Jikantoro said while giving the breakdown of the revenue estimate of the local government budget that the recurrent expenditure is N34,440,938,116, representing 68.11 per cent of the entire budget.
According to him: “Under the recurrent expenditure, we have various components.
“The Personnel Cost, which is the salaries of local government workers, is N13,691,605,027, representing 39 per cent; overhead cost N5,666,699,361, representing 16.45 per cent and distributable capital N10,940,210,570.”
Jikantoto added that N39.4 billion is expected from the statutory allocation, N7.9 billion from Value Added Tax, N960 million from local government Internally Generated Revenue, N1.1 billion from the state IGR allocation and N3 billion from capital receipts.
The Commissioner said the local government councils rely more on statutory allocation, adding that they hope to do more when the sources of revenue in the local government improves.
He added that the Ministry is taking measures to improve the collection of taxes at local governments levels, adding that there would be a review of the law to enable the council collect more taxes.