Nasarawa State Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura yesterday presented the 2013 appropriation bill of N107, 960,852,627 before the Nasarawa State Assembly.
The budget showed a marginal increase of N3.1billion or 2.94% over and above the 2012 budget.
Al Makura, who tagged the proposed bill ‘Budget of Redemption II,’ said the 2013 budget would be funded from a number of anticipated revenue sources with the opening balance/savings transferred from consolidated revenue funds to Capital Development Fund put at N1 billion; statutory revenue allocation from federation account is projected at N35 billion, while excess crude receipts is pegged at N10 billion, and Value Added Tax (VAT) at N7 Billion.
Lamenting the unimpressive outing of the 2012 budget, Al-Makura attributed it to the unprecedented drop in the federal allocation to the state, which was worsened by Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) obligations to which the state was committed to consequent upon contractual agreements entered into by previous administrations.
In this regard, he said over N350 million is being deducted at source on monthly basis while N209million goes to Paris Club refund every month, until May 2014.? According to him, a total of about N8billion had so far been paid on irrevocable commitments and debts, he added.
Al-Makura expressed commitment to completing all ongoing road construction projects started by his administration, as well as the prioritization and completion of abandoned road projects. In this regard, he gave the highest budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Works and Transport at N15.7 billion while Housing and Urban Development followed with N13.4 billion. Education and health got N4.2 billion and N3.7 billion respectively while the judiciary got the lowest allocation of N1 billion.