Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello of Niger, Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and their Nasarawa State counterpart, Abdullahi Sule, yesterday signed the over N211 billion, N145.8billion and N110billion appropriation bills into law after passage by the respective state houses of assembly.
Governor Sani-Bello signed the bill into law at government house before the commencement of the weekly executive council meeting in Minna.
The governor had in November presented a budget of over N198 billion with the capital expenditure of N124 billion while recurrent expenditure at N74 billion.
The budget was passed by the state assembly on the December 22, with an increase of N13 billion.
The governor appreciated the lawmakers for the timely passage of the bill, noting that his administration had been enjoying a cordial relationship with the legislative arm of government.
“I have seen reasons in their stubbornness sometimes and I must confess I really appreciate it because most times they are right and that is how it should be. So when we have our differences we come back and we reconcile,” he added.
Sani-Bello said that his administration was poised to fund the budget as it is the last full budget to be implemented by the present administration, saying the Board of Internal Revenue was also determined to improve the state’s Internally Generated Revenue in addition to the other sources of revenue to the state.
“On our part, we will try and see that we implement the budget but of course it is subject to availability of funds. As we are all aware, the budget is just a statement, we hope that we will be able to fund it 100 per cent,” he said.
In his remarks, the Speaker, Niger State House of Assembly, Abdullahi Bawa, said the responses from various Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, were encouraging during the budget screening process.
