From Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
Taraba state Governor Darius Ishaku on Thursday signed the Taraba State 2021 Appropriation Bill into law.
The One Forty-One billion, Six Hundred and Twenty-Five Million, Four Hundred and Thirty-five Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty-one Naira, Eighty Kobo (141, 625,435,961.80) was passed by the House of Assembly earlier in Jalingo on Thursday morning before it was taken to Abuja for the governor’s assent.
Governor Ishaku who signed the budget at the Taraba State Government House in Abuja, said with the passage of the budget, he was ready to hit the ground running with its implementation.
He commended members of the state House of Assembly for passing the budget without delay and noted that with this development “the yearly norm of signing annual and provisional warrants for Government services to subsist at a level not exceeding the level of those services prevailing in the previous financial year, pending the passage of the appropriation Bill, will no longer be an issue.
Ishaku assured that the government would be strict in expenditure control to ensure efficiency in spending and accountability.
To achieve such control, mechanisms for effective monitoring of ministries, departments and agencies will be strictly enforced”.
Ishaku noted that the approved budget would improve Government’s deliveries in key areas including infrastructure, education, healthcare, water supply, agriculture and job creation.
He thanked members of the assembly for working hard to pass the budget in record time and assured the people of the state that government was determined to deliver greater dividends of democracy.
Speaking shortly after the passage of the Bill, Speaker of the House Dr Joseph Albasu Kunini said that the house had put in extra efforts to ensure thorough consideration of the bill before passing it into law in a record short time.
Kunini said that after due review of the previous budget and in tune with current realities, the House had no choice but to jack up the earlier estimate to the current amount.
He assured that the House would be vigilant through its oversight functions in ensuring religious implementation of the budget so as to boost development in the state.
He lamented “poor adherence to globally acceptable protocols for the prevention of COVID-19 spread in the state and urged the people to take the pandemic serious as the second as the second wave is here and not a joke. The numbers are rising exponentially and based on previous predictions, this might even be more devastating than the first one”.
He observed that the final figure had increased by about 2,1 billion Naira but noted that the new figures were realistic.
Taraba State Governor Darius Ishaku on the 4th of this month presented the 2021 budget proposal of One Hundred and Thirty Nine Billion, Four Hundred and Sixty Million, Four Hundred and Thirty Five Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty one Naira, Eighty Kobo (139,460,435,961.80) to the state House of Assembly for consideration.
Tagged the budget of restoration and stabilization, the budget had a recurrent expenditure estimate of Eighty Two Billion, Nine Hundred and Ten Million, Four Hundred and Eight Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty (82,910,408,650) representing 59.45% and capital expenditure projection of N56,550,387,310.90 representing 40.55%.