EXTRA: Masari weeps as he presents last budget as governor

Aminu Masari, governor of Katsina, broke down in tears while presenting the final budget of his administration to the state house assembly on Tuesday.

Masari has been in office since 2015.

NAN reports that the government proposed N288.63 billion as the state’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year.

The proposal tagged ‘Budget of Transition’ earmarked 63.77 percent as capital expenditure and 36.23 percent for recurrent services.

“In aggregate terms, the 2023 budget is lower than that of the 2022 revised budget by N34, 662, 962, 998.00,” NAN quoted Masari as saying.

“The 2023 budget is structured with a total recurrent expenditure of N104,580,485,996.28, equivalent to 36.23 percent of the total budget.

“And capital expenditure of N184,052,771,966.72, which is 63.77 percent of the total budget.”

He said the budget would be financed from the opening balance of N12.06 billion, N62.59 billion internally generated revenue, and over N119 billion expected from the Federation Account.

“It is important to note that the 2023 recurrent revenue has increased by 7.33 percent over that of the 2022 revised budget,” he said.

“And the capital expenditure in the 2023 budget has decreased by 20.92 percent due to a drop in capital receipts.”

He explained that N138.163 billion of the capital estimates would finance projects under the government restoration plan in key sectors.

“As a result, therefore, the 2023 budget has provided an adequate allocation of funds to the priority sectors of the state government (capital) as follows,” he said.

“Environment N31,748,186,500.00, Water Resources N29,207,394,335.00, Health N23,974,614,962.00, Works N20,995,858,882.00, Education N18,632,987,897.00, and Agriculture N13,604,292,049.00.”

He said other ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) were allocated N45.88 billion.

Masari said that he believed that his administration had done well to uplift the living standard of the people.

“I am sure posterity will judge our government on the meaningful projects, programmes and policies implemented during its tenure as the government of Katsina state,” the governor said.

On his part, Tasiu Magari, speaker of the assembly, assured that the lawmakers would speed up the approval of the budget.