The Kogi State House of Assembly has described the draft budget of N174.851, 544,523 presented to the state House of Assembly for 2017 fiscal year by Governor Yahaya Bello as too ambitious.
According to Punch, the Assembly, while committing the draft budget to the House Committee on Finance Appropriation and Budget Monitoring after passing the first and second readings, observed a 67 per cent increase in the capital expenditure which was higher than the recurrent expenditure.
Bello had on December 22, 2016 described the appropriation bill as a budget of new direction.
However, the lawmakers, at a debate presided over by the Majority Leader, Mathew Kolawole, also discovered a reduction in personnel cost which they promised to look critically at during the budget defence.
Meanwhile, the Chairman House Committee on Finance Appropriation and Budget Monitoring, John Abba, while briefing journalists shortly after Thursday’s plenary, announced that ministries, departments and agencies would begin their budget defence from February 8.
Abba explained that the 25 committees in the House will give listening ears to all ministries, departments and agencies, promising that before the House reconvenes on February 28, a huge success would have been recorded on the budget before passage.
“This is the first time in Kogi State and even in Nigeria that revenue expenditure is lower than capital expenditure. Most of the budgets you see, the revenue expenditure is usually higher than the capital expenditure. The capital expenditure is 67 per cent of the total budget estimates,” he said.
