By Mohammed Bello
Bauchi
Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar of Bauchi State has assented to the 2018 appropriation bill of N168 billion, with provision for massive rural road construction, covering 1,000 kilometers in all parts of the state.
At the Government House, Governor Abubakar said apital projects took 60 percent of the appropriation while 40 percent was allocated to recurrent expenditure.
Abubakar, who lamented that many governments in the country had been making higher allocations to recurrent expenditure, which benefits only a fraction of the population, said his administration had to make higher allocation of the appropriation to “capital projects for the overall interest of the generality of the people.”
He explained that the state had already made available its counterpart funds for the construction of the 1,000 kilometers of rural road to the World Bank for the immediate commencement of the project.
Governor Abubakar noted that citizens of Bauchi State were lucky to have such representatives that work within the parameters of the law, stressing that House of Assembly has shown commitment to everything put before it is treated for the betterment of the people.
“For the second year running in Bauchi State, education takes the highest allocation of 19.22 percent, followed by health with 15.23 percent,” Abubakar said.
He explained that the huge allocations of appropriations made to the education sector have already started yielding fruits with improvement in the performance of Bauchi state students writing WEAC and NECO, from 03% when the administration came into office in 2015 to 27% in 2017.
“We haven’t reached the target yet. We target the highest in both WEAC and NECO the entire country,” the governor said, but regretted that the administration was not happy with results coming from the huge investments made in the health sector.
He stressed that completion of all ongoing projects, diversifying the economy through agriculture, tourism and mining are going to be pursued.
The governor revealed that some experts would soon be arriving the state from the Czech Republic to carry out scientific studies to improve mining activities in the state and turn around the economy of its people.
On agriculture, the governor said that his recent visit to Morocco has attracted the acquisition of improved seeds, use of science through improvement in mobile soil analysis, fertilizer combination for higher yields and mechanization.
He said that they would be carried out through a partnership with the largest fertilizer producer in the world, which is coming from Morocco to Bauchi for the commencement of the exercise soon.
