Gov. Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe, on Friday, signed the N154.9 billion 2022 budget into law.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the total budget size is N154,963 billion reflecting an increase of N353,350 million over the initial sum of N154,610 million proposed by the governor.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Yahaya said that before the presentation of the appropriation bill to the House of Assembly, a public hearings were held for the collation of inputs, as basis for the budget preparations.

“What we forwarded to the House was the requests and aspirations of the constituents, and today, we signed the “Budget of Consolidation” into law.

“We shall consolidate on our resilience, considering the effects of COVID-19 pandemic globally,” he said.

He applauded the synergy between the executive arm and legislature in fast tracking speedy passage of the bill.

The governor expressed optimism that such collaboration would translate to good work, quality service delivery towards uplifting the social and economic condition of the people of the state.

‘Weather we like it or not, the people are really expecting a lot, and our ability to maximise resources at our disposal will ensure the implementation of critical projects,” he said.

Related News

The Speaker, Abubakar Lugerewo described the ratio between capital and recurrent expenditure in the budget as ‘encouraging.”

Lugerewo said that the provision for the capital expenditure was higher than recurrent expenditure in spite of the huge cost of running the government and approaching election period.

He said the development clearly demonstrated the zeal of the governor towards improving the social and economic wellbeing of the people.

According to him, 91.7 per cent of the total budget size is going to the economic and social sector while 5.2 per cent earmarked for the administrative sector.

“This clearly showed that the state is going to spend less in running the government, we see this as commendable,” he said.

The Speaker also commended the budget office over the 2021 budget performance, saying as at Sept. 2021, the state achieved 62.8 per cent performance.

He expressed the hope that before the end of the year it would reach 80 per cent. (NAN)