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Budget of
Sustenance
Being
text of the Nasarawa State Year 2001 Budget Presented to the Nasarawa State
House of Assembly by His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State,
Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, Sarkin Yakin Keffi,
on November 28, 2000.
We are delighted to present the state’s appropriation bill for the year
2001 before this honourable house for your due consideration. We have named it
the Budget of Sustenance. We chose the name advisedly. A little under a year ago
on December 17, 1999, we laid before you our Budget of Rebirth. The philosophy
of that budget was the rebirth of hope in our new democracy. The philosophy of
the 2001 budget is the sustenance of that hope not only in our democracy but
also in us as the collective agents for change, progress and development.
Our government is eighteen months old. In eighteen months, no one
expected us to solve all the social and economic problems of our people. We did
not promise such magic at the inception of this administration. We promised that
we would make a difference in the lives of our people. With gratitude to God, we
are pleased to observe that the evidence in the difference we have made in the
social, educational and economic development of our young state is now obvious.
This progress within so short a time in the life of this administration would
not have been possible without the active co-operation and support of this
honourable house. Permit me, therefore, Mr. Speaker, to pay my tribute to you
and the honourable members for being such wonderful partners in our progress.
Let me say it again: our people are blessed to have you.
Democracy
is a co-operative and participatory form of government. We must all co-operate
and we must all participate in it for the good and the progress of our people
who entrusted their fate in our hands. The journey into the Nasarawa State of
our collective dreams is still a long one. It will continue to be an exciting as
well as a frustrating experience for all of us because of the usual intervening
variables in human lives. But we have so far shown courage and resilience in the
face of all odds. With a firm commitment to our goal, we are beginning to see
the shape of our dreams as a people and as a government. The Budget of
Sustenance is a clarion call for renewed vigour in the executive, the
legislature, the judiciary and indeed, our people. We must move on.
The 2001 appropriation bill anticipates a revenue of nine billion, three
hundred and eighty-four million, two hundred and eighty thousand Naira
(N9,384,280,000) and expenditure of nine billion, seven hundred and eighty
million, two hundred and eighty thousand Naira (N9,784,280,000.00). There is
thus a slight deficit of four hundred million (N400,000,000.00). About
two-thirds of the anticipated revenue, that is seven billion, two hundred
million Naira (N7,200,000.000) will be the state’s share from the federation
account. We expect five hundred and forty million Naira(N540 million) from our
share of the Value Added Tax, VAT, while five hundred and forty-three million
Naira, two hundred and eighty thousand Naira (N544,280,000) will come from our
internally-generated revenue. In addition to these receipts, Nasarawa Sate
expects to receive one billion, one hundred million Naira (1,100,000,000) from
the stabilization and miscellaneous receipts account. We have proposed four
billion, three hundred and fifty three million, four hundred and sixty thousand,
three hundred and seventy Naira (N4,353,460,370) for recurrent expenditure.
Capital vote takes five billion, four hundred and thirty million, eight hundred
and nineteen thousand, six hundred and thirty Naira (N5,430,819,630).
On the face of it, our current budget proposal is handsome by the
standards of our state. Our Budget of Rebirth was N4.423 billion. However, in
September, owing to certain developments in the economy, such as the new
national minimum wage and the increase in the prices of petroleum products, we
found it necessary to ask this honourable house for a supplementary budget of
N2.958 billion. Its approval brought the total budget proposal for the current
fiscal year to N7.186 billion. It will thus be seen that our budget proposal for
next year is hardly a leap from where we were to a new height. Nevertheless, we
must be thankful for the positive developments in the international crude oil
market, which boosted the federation account and improved the state’s share
from it.
The budget proposal shows three inescapable facts. Firstly, it shows that
the state still has a very weak revenue base. This picture is not likely to
change in the near future, but we are determined to set in motion the process
for its change. We must all recognize the inherent danger in our state depending
almost entirely on hand outs from the federation account. For a meaningful
development, our state should depend more on its internally-generated revenue
and less on its share from the federation account. Only the rapid
industrialization of our state can change this picture. This is why the
industrialization of the state ranks high on the priority list of this
administration. Indeed, as we speak, experts from the United States of America,
Europe and other parts of Nigeria are attending the Nasarawa State Economic
Summit, the second in the series instituted by our administration. In the next
two days, they will crack their brains and provide us with a blueprint for the
effective utilization of our raw materials for our social, industrial and
economic development.
Secondly, the appropriation bill shows that compared with some other
states, our beloved state is economically depressed. For instance, our budget is
almost one third of that of Lagos State. But let me underline the point I made
before you a year ago: the size of the budget matters less than the will to make
every Naira return its value to our people.
We will continue to do more, much more with less money.
Thirdly, our capital vote is higher than our recurrent expenditure. We
are thus maintaining our record here.
Details of the sectoral allocations are contained in the comprehensive
budget proposal. It would not be necessary for me to spell them out here. But
permit me to single out five sectors for a brief comment before this honourable
house. Education continues to have the lion share of our budget for obvious
reasons. Eight hundred and eighty million Naira (N880,000,000.00) which is
twenty-six per cent of the budget goes to education.
Right from its inception this administration made it clear that education
ranks top on its list of priorities. Education is the modern key to human
development. It is hardly news that our state is educationally disadvantaged. As
soon as we took office we began a comprehensive rescue operation of education
in the state. We have changed the depressing picture we found eighteen
months ago in this sector. We rehabilitated dilapidated schools; we provided
free exercise books to primary and post primary institutions; we established six
new science secondary schools and boosted
the morale of teachers by attending to their basic needs of housing,
transportation and an enhanced living standard. We converted four secondary
schools located in Toto, Awe, Akwanga and Keana local government areas into
boarding schools. We made JSSI-JSS3 tuition free throughout the state. We
recruited 1,350 teachers from across Nigeria to improve on our student-teacher
ratio in the state. Perhaps, the most important development in this sector is
the proposed multi-campus state university. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker,
honourable members, the bill for the establishment of the university is before
this honourable house. We expect the university to take off in the 2001-2002
academic session.
This honourable house will find a significant vote for the transport
sector in our next year’s budget. You might want to know what is responsible
for this. The answer is simple. As the Romans said, civilization follows roads.
In modern parlance, development is a child of interaction. Or, to bring the old
Roman saying even nearer home, so long as our rural areas are cut off from
modern development because of lack of roads, our rural development programme
will be meaningless. It is the considered view of this administration that our
real challenge as a government lies in our rural transformation. This
comprehensive programme embraces road construction and rehabilitation,
agricultural development, health care delivery system and the provision of light
and potable water. We have done a great deal under this programme in the past
eighteen months. Thirty towns and villages throughout the state now enjoy
potable water; twenty others have solar driven electricity under our rural
electrification programme. We are constructing more than one thousand kilometers
of roads in various parts of the state. Some of the more prominent ones are the
Obi-Keana, Nasarawa Eggon-Mada station; Mararaban Kokona-Agwada-Edegen Beki;
Kadarko-Giza-Keana; Doma-Akpanaja; Lafia-Barkin Abdullahi; Adogi-Arikya;
Nasarawa-Loko and Nasarawa-Ara. We intend, therefore, to continue with this
programme in the next fiscal year with the construction of Toto-Umaisha;
Kanje-Azara; Lafia-Nasarawa; Awe-Tunga and Sisinbaki-Jini Bwol roads, hence what
might be regarded as a handsome allocation to the transport sector in our budget
proposal for the next fiscal year, 2001.
Under
the new 200 KM road project of this administration, we have ear-marked eight
hitherto local government roads for rehabilitation in the next fiscal year.
These are the Assakio-Tungan Nupawa; the Agwatashi-Jangwa; the Keffi-Bagaji; the
Gora-Roguwa-Saka; Uke-gora-Dansa; Akwanga-Awogashen-Washo-Alushi,
Nasarawa-Bakono, Gwanje-Buhar-Andaha and Andaha-Bayan Dutse roads. We will also
construct an airstrip for the state capital, Lafia.
The third sector that deserves a brief comment is housing and urban
development. The need for shelter ranks high on the priority scale of human
beings everywhere. Inadequate housing has been with us in this country for a
long time. It has become a much greater problem today because of increasing
urbanization as a consequence of rural-urban drift. If this growing problem is
not tackled, it will only create greater problems with dire consequences for all
our development efforts. Urban development, even in developed countries, is an
ambitious project. It is expensive. But we cannot shy away from giving it the
attention it deserves in our state. Increasing urbanization will naturally flow
from our comprehensive rural development. Our budgetary provision for this very
vital sector of our economy is a reflection of our determination to tackle this
problem. We know, of course, that as a government, we cannot meet all the
housing needs of our people, given our limited resources. We are, therefore,
taking steps to provide necessary incentives to private estate developers to
assist in this area. It is the intention of government to limit itself to the
provision of the necessary infrastructure.
Mr. Speaker, honourable members, information is power and legitimate
power can only flow from an informed citizenry. This is vital to the sustenance
of democracy. In a democracy, information is a two-way traffic. The government
needs to inform the people of its programmes and policies. At the same time, it
needs a feed back from the people for the purposes of guiding its decisions. It
is for this reason of mutual interaction between the government and the people
that we have allocated six hundred and eighty five million Naira
(N685,000,000.00) to the information sector in the next fiscal year. The money
will be used for the establishment of the state-owned television station, the
setting up of a business information centre, television viewing centres and the
running of the state-owned newspaper, Nigeria Newsday. The newspaper is
currently a weekly publication. Ultimately, we intend to have a daily and weekly
versions of the paper. We have also bought mobile cinema vans for the purposes
of educating the rural populace on what government is doing for them. These will
be put into effective use next year. The business information center is to
provide a bank of information about the state to local and international
consumers. We intend to develop our information technology programme further by
putting in place the infrastructure necessary for a complete state of the art
information technology centre.
Water as the old adage goes, is the source of life. It is in view of this
consideration that this administration has since its inception embarked upon the
rehabilitation of the various water schemes in the state. In the course of the
new fiscal year, we intend to undertake major rehabilitation works on the water
supply schemes of Nasarawa Eggon and Nasarawa towns. We shall establish a rural
water scheme in each electoral ward of the state.
The Nasarawa State 2001-2003 rolling plan of which this appropriation
bill is part, aims at achieving the following objectives:
·
Production
of more food to ensure food security through increased land cultivation and
supply of agricultural inputs;
·
Enhancement
of employment opportunities through poverty alleviation and rural development
programmes
·
Rehabilitation
of facilities in the existing secondary health care institutions and
intensification of the primary health care delivery system
·
Development
and investment in solid mineral projects
·
Improvement
in transportation system through rehabilitation of existing rural roads and the
construction of new ones
·
Rehabilitation
and expansion of existing potable water supply and
·
Provision
of counterpart funding for donor funded priority projects and programmes.
Mr.
Speaker, honourable members, these objectives constitute our collective
challenge as a government and as a people. Let me urge you and the good people
of this state to have the will and the determination to meet these challenges.
It bears repeating. This administration shall not be deterred from pursuing its
goal for any reasons whatsoever.
This honourable house would be pleased to know that our industrial
development programme is on course. We have made and continue to make strenuous
efforts to attract local and foreign investors to the state. As I said earlier,
the state economic summit is part of this process of opening the state and its
industrial and commercial potentials to the rest of the world. We have
undertaken trade missions to the United States, Europe and the Far East to
market these potentials. We are pleased to inform the honourable members that
these visits together with our presence on the Internet, are paying off. In
concrete terms, our beef processing and feed lot development schemes have become
a reality. Work has now started on these two vital projects. Work has also begun on our fertilizer blending plant. This is
part of our effort to develop agriculture in our state. Fertilizer is a major
input in modern agricultural development. We have no doubt that when this plant
becomes operational, it will meet the crying need of our peasant farmers in
particular and farmers in other parts of the country in general. To support the
fertilizer blending plant and agriculture in general, work shall commence on a
woven bag manufacturing plant for the production of laminated bags for packaging
the fertilizer products and others such as grains, vegetables, cement, sugar,
salt and carrier bags, popularly called ‘Ghana must go’. We have also
concluded discussions on the establishment of a photovoltaic manufacturing plant
for the production of solar energy panels for the domestic and export markets.
Mr. Speaker, honourable members, you will kindly note the fact that in
the course of this address, we have refused to blow our own trumpet. We have two
good reasons for this. Firstly, the modest achievements of this administration
are collective achievements. Without the support of all the arms of the
government and the people themselves, they would not have been possible.
Therefore, if there is need to blow the trumpet, let us all blow it together.
Secondly,
it is a fact of human life that the trumpet is often an instrument for
unnecessary claims and self-aggrandizement. That sort of attitude ignores the
source of human inspiration and achievements: the Almighty Allah to whom we must
be thankful and grateful. However, this honourable house which approved an
expenditure of a little over seven billion Naira in the current fiscal year, has
the right to enquire as to how this money was spent and what it was spent on. We
have often said that this enquiry is both important and necessary. We promised
to run an open and transparent government fully accountable to the people. It is
your constitutional duty as the legislative arm of government to ensure that
this principle is strictly adhered to. The confidence of the people in their
government depends largely on the diligent observance of the principle of
accountability.
At every stage in the implementation of the current budget, we have kept
this honourable house and our people fully briefed on our progress. It would
serve no purpose for us to catalogue our achievements in the course of this
address. We have compiled a comprehensive list of our projects in all the
sectors, which will be made available to this honourable house. The state ministry of information will also publish the list
for the benefit of our people.
Mr. Speaker, honourable members, in our inaugural address on May 29 last
year, we appealed for peace in every part of the state because without peace,
the state could not expect to develop. We cannot afford to dissipate energy and
waste needed human and material resources on inter or intra-ethnic squabbles. We
are pleased to note that our people have responded positively to this appeal. In
this regard, the most important development in our state this year was the
return of the Bassa displaced people to their ancestral homes in Toto local
government area. They were formally received at a colourful ceremony attended by
the vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in Toto on July 3. The people are
making satisfactory progress in their resettlement. We take this opportunity to
once more thank the federal government for its generous support in financial and
material resources towards their resettlement. Our gratitude also goes to the
people of Toto local government in particular and the people of the state in
general without whose co-operation and support the government would not have
been able to set this new and shining example in crisis resolution in our
country. We appeal to our people once more to embrace dialogue in the resolution
of their disagreements. Let peace reign in our state so that together we can
progress as a people with a common destiny.
Mr. Speaker, honourable members, we wish to thank you most sincerely for
kindly receiving the appropriation bill for the fiscal year 2001 from us today.
It our sincere hope and prayer that you will be guided by God’s wisdom, the
interest of our people and your place in the history of our state in your
consideration of our budgetary proposals.
Thank you.
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