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Gyang Bere, Jos
Plateau House of Assembly, yesterday, passed the 2020 appropriation bill of over N177.3 billion into law.
This followed the report by the House Standing Committee on Appropriation presented at plenary by its Chairman, Mr Yahaya Adamu.
Governor Simon Lalong on November 26 presented a budget of N172.5 billion to the House for the 2020 fiscal year.
Tagged ‘Budget of Rescue and Infrastructural Consolidation’, over N98 billion is voted for recurrent expenditure, while capital expenditure would gulp over N74 billion.
On December 3, the budget passed the second reading and the House committed the bill to its standing committee on appropriation.
According to Adamu, the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the state had defended their proposals before the standing committees of the house.
“The House committed the 2020 appropriation bill to the committee on appropriation, after it was presented on November 26 by the governor. After intense scrutiny of proposals of MDAs by various standing committees, this committee wishes to recommend that the sum of over N177.3 billion be approved as the budget size for the 2020 fiscal year. There is an addition of over N5 billion as recommended by this committee, against the initial figure of N172.5 billion as presented by the governor,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lalong has said the creation of additional chiefdom and districts was not meant to weaken major ethnic groups in the state.
He disclosed this, yesterday, at the installation and presentation of staff of office to the Saf Kulere of Kulere Chiefdoms, His Royal Highness, Saf Lawrence Aizat in Bokkos Local Government Area.
“This brings me to the mischief peddled around by some people, including political opponents that the creation and restoration of chiefdoms and districts is an attempt to weaken some ethnic groups or existing the chiefdoms. This is far from the truth.
“This argument has no basis because if you go back to history, many of these villages, districts and chiefdoms had co-existed peacefully for centuries until colonial and subsequent administrations created structures for administrative conveniences.
“Today no chiefdom, district or village is created without agitation from people and thorough consultation with stakeholders. If these creations were bad, they would not have been made by many administrations before us,” Lalong said.
The governor described traditional institutions as key drivers to the survival of cultures and as units that mitigates crimes in the state.
Lalong said the coronation and presentation of staff of office to His Royal Highness, Saf Lawrence Aizat as Saf Kulere was a fulfilment of the dream of the people of Kulere land.
“During campaigns, I assured that we shall create new chiefdoms and districts as well as restore the ones that were erroneously abolished by the last administration.”
“Although, many thought at that time that it was mere political rhetoric and campaign strategy, we are today proving skeptics wrong and making it abundantly clear that you can trust us,”Lalong said.
