Five months after he presented the 2016 Budget proposal to the State House of Assembly, the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, has signed the Appropriation Bill of N85 billion into law.
This is coming more than a month after the state lawmakers passed it to Bello for assent.
While signing the budget, Governor Bello attributed the delay to the laziness of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, and the zeal of the government to get its first budget right and towards ensuring that the budget restores the hope of the people.
According to him: “A lot of Ministries are still in the habit of copy and paste.
“For many years, if you look at the budget, there have been repetition of what have been going on for over 10 to 15 years.
“This means that some sectors of the ministry are not doing their work properly.
“The Ministries, Departments and Agencies need to start working on time to present a budget that will meet the current reality of life.
“The 2017 Budget will be passed into law by January or February next year.
“Human beings are dynamic and the country is not stagnant.
“So there is no way the system of budget 10 to 15 years ago will apply to this situation.”
The Governor assured the state House of Assembly of at least 98 per cent implementation, commending the members of the House for passing the budget without making any request of conditions.
The Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Hon. Ahmed Marafa, said the Appropriation Bill was increased from N74 billion to N85 billion to accommodate some critical areas that will impact on the people.
Marafa said the House will be diligent in its oversight function towards ensuring that the budget is implemented.
The budget is made up of an expenditure of N85,092,122,133, made up of recurrent expenditure of N41,433,666,593 and capital expenditure of N43,658,455,540.