By John Shiklam
Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has presented a budget proposal of N233billion for the 2022 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly.
The budget proposal is made up of capital expenditure of N146billion and recurrent spending of N87.6billion.
Making the presentation before the lawmakers yesterday in Kaduna, he said, like the previous budgets, priorities are on education, healthcare and infrastructural development.
According to him, the budget draft reflects the political values and governance principles that had consistently guided the six previous budgets by his government since 2015.
El-Rufai noted that the 2022 estimates are slightly smaller than the 2021 budget of N237.52billion, which had N157.56billion as capital and N79.96billion recurrent expenditure.
He said most of the capital spending would be in the economic and social sectors “in keeping faith with our stated governance agenda.
“We propose to devote 76.8 percent of the capital budget to schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, including housing. Capital spending on education is N68.4billion (29 percent) and for health N35.1billion (15 percent).”
El-Rufai said devoting N115billion to the critical sectors demonstrated continuity in his administration emphasis on education and health as the key drivers of human capital development.
The governor expressed appreciation to the lawmakers for the close partnership that had enabled his administration to innovate and drive progressive outcomes in the state.
According to him, “It is with your kind support that we have the necessary legislation to anchor our governance innovations. Enacting the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM) law has enabled our state to introduce a revolution in Nigeria by adopting electronic voting for the local government elections of September 2021 and May 2018.” He said over 100 new laws had been enacted since 2015 to institutionalise reforms in public finances, procurement, taxation, child welfare and protection, investment promotion, scholarships, youth capacity building and residency, among others.
The governor said further that his administration has continued to maintain its focus on making Kaduna State one of the foremost investment destinations in Nigeria, attracting $2.8 billion in investments and pledges.
El-rufai said: “We recently hosted the sixth edition of the Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KADInvest). This concluded with the inauguration of the tomato processing plant of Tomato Jos, one of the investors in the agriculture sector in our state.’’
He said the government was looking forward to the inauguration of the Gujeni Iron and Steel Plant of the African Natural Resources and Mines in Kagarko Local Government Area in 2022.
“We also expect the Dangote-Peugeot vehicle assembly project and the OCP fertilizer plant located on the Kaduna-Abuja road to come on stream,’’ he said.
The governor said without increasing taxes, the state has become one of the top five state for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in Nigeria, collecting N50.7billion in taxes and levies in 2020.
