Kaduna State Governor Mukhtar Yero has signed into law a total of N200.7 billion as the state’s 2015 Budget. The ceremony, which took place yesterday at the Government House in Kaduna, was witnessed by the Speaker and principal officers of the State House of Assembly as well as some other top government officials.

Yero at the occasion spoke of the need for the state to improve its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to ensure sufficient implementation of the budget. “I like to assure the House of Assembly and indeed the entire people of Kaduna State that we shall implement this budget on the basis of available resources,” he said, adding:

“We shall concentrate on revenue generation to fund this budget. There is a great challenge with the Federal Allocation and we need to improve on our IGR.”

The governor condemned report by a national daily that the State Assembly rejected a proposed expenditure of N30 billion SURE-P fund. He said: “This is misinformation because the total revenue accrued from SURE-P to Kaduna State since its inception in 2012 is not up to N30 billion. I demand apology for that erroneous report or I will be left with no option than to take legal action.”

Continuing, he said: “There is nowhere in the budget that we made a provision of N30 billion for SURE-P. There is no provision of the budget that has no explanation as claimed by the newspaper, if there was the House would not have passed the budget.”

Yero also denied the rumour making the rounds that part of the state IGR was being paid into a private account. “I challenge anyone who has proof that we are making N3 billion monthly as IGR and that the money is being paid into a private account to come out with the facts and I am ready to account for such deed,” he said.

The governor challenged those spreading the rumour to cross check the records of the state IGR since 2007 to ascertain the improvement recorded since he became Finance Commissioner to date.

In his speech earlier, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Alhaji Usman Tahir, said the budget was reduced by N3 billion as a reflection of the present austerity measures in the country.

He said the budget was passed in four weeks adding that “I am happy to present a budget of N200.7 billion with a slight decrease of N3 billion. We say this should be a year for sacrifice by all of us.”

Governor Yero had on December 23, 2014 presented a budget estimate of N203,700,855,271 to the House of Assembly. The House passed the budget in a record four weeks.

•Photo shows Governor Yero.

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