Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno on Wednesday presented a N234.8 billion budget for the 2023 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.

The budget tagged “Budget of Continuity for Sustainability,” is N34 billion lower than N267.9 billion for 2022.

Presenting the budget, Mr Zulum said it was made up of N144.1 billion capital expenditure and N90.6 recurrent expenditure.

He said the budget would be financed through N137.8 billion recurrent revenue; N33.1 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), Value Added Tax of N30.1 billion, other federation account sources of N6.5 billion, and capital receipts of N95.6 billion comprising loans and grants.

“The 2023 budget like the 2022 shall be based on the federal government fiscal forecast for 2023 to 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework which was already domesticated for the first time in the state through your support recently.

“The 2023 budget shall, therefore, be facilitated by enhanced Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) as projected,” he said.

Major highlight of the budget showed that the Ministry of Finance got the lion’s share of N30.3 billion, followed by education with N28 billion and N25 billion for work.

More than N19.9 billion has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and N19.6 billion to the Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement.

The speaker, Abdulkarim Lawan, described the budget as “all-inclusive” and captured all the peculiar needs of the people of the state.

Mr Lawan said the House would ensure speedy passage of the bill, and tasked ministries, departments and agencies to accord maximum cooperation to its committees during their budget defences.

“The honourable house will accord the processing and passage of the budget proposal the urgency it deserves to enable your administration to start implementing it in January,” he said. 

(NAN)