The Kogi state House of Assembly yesterday passed into law with a slight amendment, the 2014 Appropriation Bill presented to it by Governor Idris Wada in December last year. The N129 billion budget passed yesterday is N235 million higher than the N128.720 billion presented to it by the governor.
Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Appropriation and Budget Monitoring, Mr Gabriel Daudu, while presenting the committee’s report on the budget said it made provisions for some sectors not earlier captured. He said the transport sector of the Works and Transport Ministry was allocated N50 million while the Rural Development Ministry also got N50 million, Water Supply got N10 million and the House of Assembly overhead cost was allocated N75 million while Commerce, Finance and Cooperative were collectively allocated N50 million.
He said the increase was to enable the ministries and parastatals meet their overhead costs arising from salary increases, promotions and other allowances within the year. Daudu said the committee observed that enough funds were not released to ministries, parastatals, departments and agencies for the execution of their projects in 2013 and called for improvement in 2014.
