By Juliana Katung
Kaduna (Nigeria) – Kaduna State Assembly, Northwest Nigeria Wednesday passed the 23 local government councils budget with an increase of over N1 billion .
This came after defence and harmonisation of the estimates among the councils and the respective members representing the 34 constituencies as well as the 23 local government sole administrators .
The approved budget capital expenditure now stands at the sum N21,246,770,844.80 as against N21,143,261,845.80 presented to the House, while the recurrent stands N36,143,512,101.38 as against N34,847,979,11.04.
The increase was as a result of slight review of revenue estimates of four local governments which are, Kudan, Makarfi, Chikun and Birnin gwari so as to augment shortfalls on recurrent services such as Personnel and Overhead costs.
The sum of N355,600,270.37 is the additional projected revenue of the Kudan Local Government, Makarfi council has N306,441,716.00 as the additional revenue, while Chikun has N550, 000,000
The Speaker who presided over the plenary directed the chairman on appropriation and implementation committee, Ahmed Mohammed to liaise with the Chairman committee on local government and chieftancy affairs for full implementation of the budget.
Similarly the House passed bill to Amend the Penal Code,2017 in to Law which is to take care of exigencies in order to make the Law effective. Similarly, the amendment will conform with the Substance Abuse Law No.9 of 2016 operating in the state.
Section 383(2) of the law says that “whoever being a Muslim faith drinks anything intoxicating other than for medical purpose, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one month or with fine which may extend to ten thousand naira (10,000.00) or both.”
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/02/02/news/nigeria-gombe-legislature-passes-2018-budget-of-114-billion-naira/