By Inusa Ndahi, Maiduguri
The Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abdulkarim Lawan, has said that the legislative arm under his leadership will carefully study the N340 billion 2024 budget, which was presented to the House by Governor Babagana Zulum in order to ensure speedy passage for the benefits and development of the people in the state.
Lawan stated this yesterday while briefing journalists on the steps taken to ensure the budget is passed into law on or before the end of this year.
He said, given the success stories recorded by the state government in the area of health, education, poverty alleviation, youths and women empowerment, reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement of millions of internally displaced persons, IDPs, and the relative peace witnessed in 2023 fiscal year under the present administration, the House will continue to collaborate and sustain the cordial working relation between the executive and the legislative arms for the betterment of all citizens across the 27 local government areas in the state.
Already, the Speaker said, immediately after Governor Zulum presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill last Monday, 12th December, 2023, the House constitutionally sat and deliberated upon it the following day, wherein the budget passed first and second readings.
Recall that the Appropriation Bill tagged: ‘Budget of Consolidation and Progress,’ has a total sum of N198,293,223,000 allocated for capital expenditure, while N142,326,613,000 was allocated for recurrent expenditure.
Lawna said, “We have mandated all the House Committees chairmen to invite respective representatives of the various ministries to defend their own budgetary allocations for the needful, and I can reassure the government and the good people of Borno State that the House will l8ve up to it’s constitutional responsibilities, considering the good intentions of the government, especially what contained in the 2024 budget, where massive construction of roads, mega schools, health care facilities, RRR, poverty alleviation, provision of mass transit and many developmental projects across the state were itemized for implementation.”
On the plan by Governor Zulum to close all IDPs camps and relocates them back to their ancestral homes, the longest-serving Speaker in the history of Nigeria, Rt. Hon. Lawan commended the initiative, even as he hope, his own local government area, Guzamala and Abadam which have remained ghost towns for the past seven years would witness civil authority very soon.
