Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Friday signed the 2019 budget of N157.44 billion into law, with a promise to focus more on human capital and infrastructural development.

The document tagged: “Budget of Continuity” is made up of N94.47bn in capital expenditure and N62.97bn in recurrent expenditure.

While signing the Appropriation Bill into law at the Government House in Kaduna the state capital, the governor said the largest chunk of N39.14bn of the budget will be spent on the social sector, comprising education, health, and social development.

While reiterating his administration’s commitment to spending more on human capital development, El-Rufai stated the budget is slightly bigger than the proposed N155.86bn by the executive, but it, however, retains the 60:40 capital to recurrent ratio.

He said, “We are delighted that a new tradition has now been established to pass and sign our state budget in the preceding year.

“This is the outcome of the collaborative partnership between the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the Executive Branch. Each of the budgets prepared by this government has become law by 1st January of the budget year.”

According to the governor, the state government would recruit over 3000 health professionals to strengthen the primary health care sector in 2019.

“Following the passage of the law establishing the Contributory Health Management Authority, the contributory health insurance scheme will take off in Kaduna State early in 2019,” he added.

On security, he said that the state and local governments would cooperate to expand the presence of security agencies in the state with more offices and facilities for the police, the Department of State Security (DSS) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to be provided across the state.

On his part, the Deputy Speaker of the state assembly, Nuhu Shadalafiya, assured the governor of the legislature’s commitment to work with him in propelling the state to the next level of growth and development.

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