Lalong Presents N145bn Budget to Plateau Assembly

Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

The Governor of Plateau State, Mr. Simon Lalong, thursday presented N145 billion budget proposal for 2018 to the state House of Assembly for deliberation.

The bill, tagged: “Budget of Rescue and Consolidation” is about N13 billion higher than the 2017 bill that was N132 billion.
While presenting it on the floor of the assembly, Lalong said: “In this budget, we shall be consolidating on the gains and achievements of this administration since the beginning of our rescue mission.”

He added: “The budget has a total size of N145,488,066,352 only. The increase is due to increase in certain recurrent expenditures and the fact that the country is going out of recession and the hope that our economy is getting better; thereby improving the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) potential of the state.”

He further said: “The recurrent revenue in the 2018 budget is estimated at N76,534,751,393 only. This consists of N21,166,091,714 only as IGR; N36,500,000,000 as revenue from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) derived from the projection of federal government’s MTEF variables and figures released as well as projection from the state’s MTSS.

“Other revenue projections include N18,869,659,679 only as reimbursements from the federal government for the federal roads constructed by the state government.”

While turning to the Speaker of the assembly, the governor said: “Let me reiterate that a budget is a statement of intent on spending and its success depends also on the understanding and cooperation of the citizens who are the stakeholders and greatest beneficiaries. On the part of government, we are resolved to implement the budget to the best of our ability as we have demonstrated in the past since assumption of duty. However, we note that expeditious considerations and passage of the budget will enhance early implementation and improved performance rating that we desire to achieve.”