Taraba Earmarks 66% of 2020 Budget for Capital Projects

Wole Ayodele in Jalingo

Taraba State Government has budgeted to spend 66 per cent of its 2020 budget totalling N143.4 billion on capital projects.

Governor Darius Ishaku had last week Friday signed the 2020 budget of N215.8 billion into law after being passed into law by Taraba State House of Assembly.

Giving a breakdown of the budget while briefing journalists over the weekend, the Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Solomon Elisha, said the budget was tailored towards development and aimed at completing all on-going projects in the state.

Elisha explained that the focus of the budget tagged “Budget of Accelerated Growth and Development” was to complete ongoing projects in the state as well as initiate and execute others that have direct bearing on the lives of the people of the state.

He noted that the percentage of capital expenditure is 66.48 per cent as against the recurrent expenditure which is 33.522 per cent and further maintained that the budget would serve as a catalyst to boost the socio-economic status of the people of the state.

According to him, “We have deliberately decided to serve the people of the state by allocating a large part of the budget to capital expenditure in order to provide those necessary infrastructures that could serve as a catalyst to improving the socio-economic status of Tarabans and that is why the ratio between the recurrent and capital estimates is at 33.52 per cent to 66.48 per cent.”

The commissioner, however, lamented the abysmally low internally generated revenue in the state and therefore called for a shift from dependence on external sources to internal sources of revenue.

“In this regard, there is a need for all hands to be on deck to explore the states abundant resources so as to actualise our dream of becoming the leading economy in the North-east region,” he said.