The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Tuesday in Kaduna, signed the 2017 budget of N214 billion into law.

Ceoafrica gathered that the State House of Assembly was the first among the 36 states of the Federation to pass the 2017 budget into law.

The size of the 2017 budget is N214.9 billion, made up of N83.46 billion in recurrent spending and N131.45 billion in capital expenditure which is a capital to recurrent ratio of 61:39”.

Governor El-Rufai, while signing the appropriation bill into law at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, Kaduna, also announced that the state had received the Paris Club refund from the Federal Government which he said would be used to clear six years of pension, gratuity and death benefits of retired and dead workers in the state.

“I wish to inform our legislators that we shall be submitting a Supplementary Budget to enable us capture the debt refunds we have just received from the Federal Government. Fifty-five percent of these funds belong to the state government, and the balance is for the local governments.

“We propose to apply 50% of the funds to settling the inherited arrears of gratuity and death benefits for state and local government workers. Some of these unpaid arrears date from as far back as 2010. Mr. Dan Ndackson, the Executive Secretary of the Bureau of Pension, has done a great job of sorting out these records and we will be ready to pay once the supplementary budget is passed.

“This is unprecedented, but we are happy to clear the problems created by those before us. The balance of the funds will be dedicated to rural and urban roads,” he said.

The governor said the 2017 budget retained the pro-poor programmes.

“It puts the needs and interests of our people first. In 2017, Kaduna State will spend N44.84bn on Education; N10.49bn on Health; N24.50bn on Infrastructure and N8.1bn on Water. Agriculture, one of our areas of comparative advantage, will get N4.58bn,” he said.

El-Rufai said all the investments are meant to ensure that in 2017, “we deliver the Zaria Water project, begin a school rebuilding and equipment programme that is unprecedented in the history of the state; complete the refitting of 278 primary health centres and hospitals and improve our investment profile and job-creation capacity with the establishment of an agro-industrial zone.

“In addition, we will expand our programme to rebuild and maintain township roads and kick-off the first phase of the Kaduna mass transit scheme. An Emergency Nutrition Intervention Programme to reduce malnutrition and hunger amongst our poorest citizens and children would also be implemented.”