By; JULIANA KATUNG, Kaduna
The Kaduna State Assembly on Wednesday passed the local government budget with over N1 billion increment.
This came after defence and harmonization of the estimates between the councils and the respective members representing the 34 constituencies and the 23 local government areas sole administrators of the state.
The approved budget capital expenditure now stands at the sum N21,246,770,844.80 as against N21,143,261,845.80 presented to the House while the recurrent stands at N36,143,512,101.38 against N34,847,979,11.04 making the total stand as 57.3 as against 55.9.
However, the increment was as a result of slight review of revenue estimates of four local government areas which include, Kudan, Makarfi, Chikun and Birnin Gwari, to augment shortfalls on recurrent services such as personnel and overhead costs.
The sum of N355,600,270.37 is the additional projected revenue of the Kudan Local Government, Makarfi council has N306,441,716.00 as their additional revenue, while Chikun has The sum of N550, 000,000 among others.
The Speaker who presided over the plenary directed the the chairman on appropriation and implementation committee Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed, to liaise with the chairman committee on local government and chieftaincy affairs for full implementation of the budget and for further necessary and important actions.
Similarly, the house passed bill to amend the Penal Code,2017 into Law which has the aim to take care of exigencies in order to make the Law effective, similarly, the amendment will conform with the Substance Abuse Law No.9 of 2016 operating in the state.
Section 383(2) of the law says that “whoever being of Muslim faith drinks anything intoxicating other than for medical purpose, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one month or with fine which may extend to ten thousand naira (10,000.00) or both.”
