Kaduna State Government To Pass 2019 Budget

Kaduna State Government today said it had plans to submit the 2019 budget to the state’s House of Assembly, so as to secure it’s approval in June.

This was made known by the state’s Commissioner for Planning and Budget Commission, Mr Muhammed Abdullahi, at Citizens’ Consultation Forum on Open Government Partnership, Local Government Development Plan (LGDP) and Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) 2019-2021 in Kaduna.

He said that it is important they took steps now so as to avoid a situation where the process of the budget would be distracted by campaigns for the 2019 elections.

He added that “we have already gone far with the draft and we hope to conclude work on it by the end of May, so we can submit it to House of Assembly in June for approval.

“The year 2019 is a campaign year, and if we don’t get the budget passed by the House before the commencement of the campaign, it may get trapped and suffer delay.

“To maintain our record of getting budget passed and signed before the beginning of the year, we have no option than to step-up our game to get it passed before the house members go campaigning.”

The commissioner stated that the state had achieved 34% implementation on the capital expenditure of the 2018 budget in its first quota of the year.

The commissioner said the state had attained 34 per cent implementation on the capital expenditure of the 2018 budget in the first quota of the year.
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“We want you to understand the budgeting process and pay more attention to revenue generated within a budget year.

“Our expectation is that at the end of the day, CSOs and NGOs will enlighten the public on budget constrain so that they will be able to appreciate government efforts,’’ he said.

Abdullahi urged participants at the forum to go through the LGDP and suggests on how best the 2019 local government budgets in the state, can be prepared.