Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, has presented a budget of N160 billion for 2022 to the State House of Assembly for approval.

Presenting the budget on Tuesday in Gusau, Mr Matawalle said that the figure was higher than the revised 2021 budget of N117 billion by 36 per cent.

He said the budget was made up of N63 billion recurrent expenditure and N97 billion capital expenditure, and was targeted at addressing the state’s socio-economic challenges.

Mr Matawalle listed some of the challenges to include insecurity, poverty, unemployment and infrastructure deficit, adding that the budget was drawn based on the projected revenue of N80 billion recurrent and N80 billion capital expenditure.

The governor outlined a few projects that would be executed in 2022 which included the construction of Gusau- Jauri- Dogon Kade Road, rehabilitation of the existing roads from Kotorkoshi to Mada, and Gusau to Dansadau.

“Others include the reconstruction and completion of Shinkafi Referral Hospital and Construction of Maradun General Hospital. Others are the construction of dispensaries across the 14 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state,” he said.

Mr Matawalle said that the sum of N47 billion representing 48.84 per cent of the capital expenditure has been set aside to take care of investments on economic empowerment through agriculture, public finance and fiscal management.

(NAN)