Kwara House Passes 2018 Budget, Jerks It Up By N9bn

By Steve Oni, Ilorin
The Kwara State House of Assembly has passed the state’s 2018 budget.
The House put the budget estimates at N190,997, 425,571 as against N181,886,56,555 presented by the state governor, Alh Abdulfatah Ahmed on November 25, 2017, jerking up the budget size with about N9billion.
With the adjustment made at the consideration of the report of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation at the Thursday plenary, the breakdown of the budget showed that the total capital receipt stands at N110,089,173,434 as against N106,681,798,633 while the recurrent expenditure is pegged at N79,908,252,137 as against N75,204,257,922 submitted by the governor.
The Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Hon. Mashood Bakare, presented the committee’s report and was subjected to debate by members of the House.
In the new budget size, the total recurrent surplus, which is transferred to Capital Development fund is now N41,921,359,879 as against N39,263,985,078 earlier presented with an increase of N2,657,374,801.
The total internally generated revenue projected for 2018 stands at N38,336,131,710 contrary to N38,451,255,162 made available to the House.
The statutory revenue from the Federation Accounts is N33, 116,928,484 as against the proposed N27, 999,103,484.
Similarly, the capital expenditure in the 2018 budget passed by the House now stands at N110,089,173,434 against N106,681,798,633 projected in the appropriation bill presented by the governor.
The House through the budget passage made provision for local government with N2billion, State Universal Basic Education Board N3billion, Kaiama road project N1billion, Energy N250million as well as tertiary institution with N700million.
Shortly after the consideration of the report, ‎the Clerk of the House, Mohammed Katsina, read the bill for the third time as directed by the Speaker, Dr Ali Ahmad.
The Speaker directed the Clerk to prepare a clean copy of the bill for governor’s assent.