Niger local govts budget N56.5bn for 2019

The 25 local government councils in Niger State have proposed a budget estimate of N56.5 billion for the 2019 fiscal year. The councils presented the appropriation bill to the state House of Assembly through the Ministry of Local Government, Community Development and Chieftaincy Affairs. Commissioner for Local Government, Alhaji Ibrahim Balarabe made the disclosure to newsmen shortly after the state weekly executive council meeting at the Government House, Minna. Alh. Balarebe said that the budget proposal would be financed through statutory allocation from the Federal Government account, Value Added Tax (VAT) the state’s internally generated revenue to local governments, internally generated revenue by local governments as well as capital receipts. Giving the budget breakdown, the Commissioner said the recurrent expenditure is estimated to gulp N37.3 billion or 66.03 percent of the budget size and that the capital expenditure size amounts to N19.2b which makes up 33.97 percent of the budget. According to him, “the budget preparation is guided by a resource projection and will depend on the following expectations; statutory allocation of N43.6b, Internally generated revenue (IGR) from state N1.7b, Value Added Tax (VAT) N9.2b, local government IGR N1.5b and N1.4b from capital receipts.” He explained that the recurrent expenditure was higher than the capital expenditure due to the personnel strength at Local Government level. Meanwhile Commissioner for Environment and Forestry, Alh Jibril Idris Amin has said that the executive council has approved the sum N232.5m to tackle gully erosion in some parts of the state. Alh Amin said that the areas affected by the erosion are; Mashegu, Kontagora Bida, Mokwa, Kwamba area in Suleja and FUT-Minna area, adding that an engineering firm has been engaged to handle the project. Saka Bolaji, Minna