By Ikugbadi Oluwasegun
Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has presented a draft budget of N458.271billion to the State House of Assembly for 2024 on Monday.
The proposal consists of of N318.837 billion as capital expenditure and N139.435 billion as recurrent expenditure, representing a capital to recurrent ratio of 69.57 per cent to 30.43 per cent.
The governor, who addressed newsmen shortly after the budget presentation said it was tagged, “Budget of Rural Transformation and Inclusive Development”, adding that, it will prioritize critical sectors.
Mr Sani said the budget was focusing on education, health , rural and economic development as well as security, infrastructure and human capital development.
“We also hope on revitalizing the economies of rural areas where we will put a lot of money trying to bring development of our rural areas in Kaduna state.
“This is key, if we really want to reduce the level of poverty and also create jobs.
“We also allocated huge amount of money in agriculture because we believe agriculture is very important in the state; this will improve productivity and create jobs,” he said.
The governor reiterated his commitment to support hardworking entrepreneurs through social investment programmes while ensuring that the under-privileged and vulnerable groups benefited.
According to Sani, the budget was vetted in a town hall meeting before coming to the house of assembly where stakeholders actively participated and contributed in the budget process.
He added, “We try as much as possible to also include most of the inputs we received during the town hall meeting that is the reason why I believe this budget is a budget that involves virtually everyone.”