The Niger State House of Assembly has passed into law the 2020 Appropriation Bill for the 25 Local Government Areas to the tune of N65.540,065,116 billion.
While the Capital vote is to gulp N19, 613, 761,649, the Recurrent expenditure stood at N45, 926,303,467.
The state Assembly also frowned at the one billion naira (N1B) Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, realized yearly by the entire 25 councils
The Speaker of the Assembly, Hon. Bawa Wuse disclosed this during plenary while passing the local government 2020 Appropriation Bill into law.
However, the lawmakers frowned at the lopsidedness of the budget and wondered why the recurrent vote should overwhelm the capital expenditure by three times.
They observed that with a large chunk of the budget going into the payment of salaries, nothing much would be left for the Councils to execute capital projects.
The lawmakers urged the council chairmen to expand their Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, base to reduce over-dependence on the Federal Government Allocation.
“Notwithstanding the security challenges, they should expand and improve their revenue base to generate more resources for their developmental projects.”
They also called on the councils not to undertake projects that are within the jurisdictions of Federal and State Governments but restrict them to their constitutional responsibilities.
In a chat with Journalists, the Chairman Joint Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon. Shuaibu Iya representing Suleja Constituency commended the House for passing the budget.
Speaking on the recurrent vote, Iya said, ” Salaries affect Capital expenditure and the issue is that most workers at the LGS don’t have a schedule of duty and if you try to reduce them, it will cause another problem.”
He also hinged the dwindling resources of the grassroots areas to security challenges facing some areas, saying, “insecurity affects the economy and for example with increasing banditry attacks, kidnapping, COVID-19 among others in councils like Rafi, Shiroro, Gurara, people will find it hard to go to work and it will also affect food security.”
