The Gombe State Government says it will spend N32.24 billion on payment of workers’ salaries in the 2025 fiscal year with a budget of N369.9 billion.
Muhammad Magaji, Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development, stated this during the 2025 budget breakdown on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Governor Inuwa Yahaya on Monday assented to the N369.9 billion Appropriation Bill passed by the Jigawa State House of Assembly.
Magaji said the amount was 10.31 percent higher than the 2024 personnel cost of N29.22 billion, adding that the increase in the personnel cost to the tune of N3 billion would fast track the implementation of the N70,000 national minimum wage.
He said the government plans to spend N38.08 billion as overhead cost, representing 10.29 percent of the approved estimate, adding that the overhead for 2024 was 22.72 percent lower than that of the incoming year.
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The Commissioner said the state government would spent 10.02 percent of its budget on debt servicing in the next financial year.
He said that it amounted to N37.22 billion, representing 18.08 percent increase of the N31.52 billion used in debt servicing in 2024, stressing that there was no cause for alarm over the allocation of 10 percent of the budget for debt servicing in 2025.
According to Magaji, the approved limit by the Debt Management Office for borrowing is 40 percent, and it should not be more than 40 percent of the state’s budget before such a state could borrow.
He said that 10 percent was low, indicating that the state was doing well and managing its financial affairs appropriately.
He said: “We are borrowing to improve infrastructure, and there is nowhere in the world where the government does not borrow for infrastructure and does not borrow to ensure that services that are required are put in place.
“We don’t borrow for recurrent.
“All we borrow is for capital projects and that is the best practice.”
On revenue, Magaji said the state projected a N25.66 billion Internally Generated Revenue, representing 17.58 percent of the total budget for 2025, indicating a N600 million increase over the previous financial year.
On sectoral allocations, he said infrastructure got the lion share of 22.82 percent of the total budget size, followed by education at 15.14 percent, health 9.14 percent, and agriculture 5.40 percent.”
