The Gombe State House of Assembly has approved a budget of N108 billion for the 2013 fiscal year. This is contained in a statement issued by the Chief Information Officer of the House, Alhaji Abubakar Umar, on Wednesday in Gombe.
The statement said the approval of the budget followed the adoption of the report of the House Committee on Appropriation.
According to the statement , the approved budget shows an increase of N320 million over the initial proposal of N107.8 billion presented by Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo on Dec. 28, 2012.
It said the lawmakers increased the expected internally generated revenue by N20 million and extended Value Added Tax (VAT) to N300 million.
It explained that N202.1 million was allocated to some ministries that were in need of more funds, while the remaining N117.9 million was used to reduce the budget deficit to N4.7 billion.
The statement explained that N66.1 billion, representing 61 per cent was for capital expenditure while the recurrent expenditure would gulp N44.9 billion, representing 39 per cent of the budget.
“The budget will be principally funded through recurrent revenue of N50.4 billion and capital receipts of N59.7 billion.
“The committee recommends that all revenue generating agencies should block leakages and tap the untapped revenues of the state,” it said.
The statement said the legislators directed every ministry to discharge its statutory functions and that the Ministry of Finance should consider all approvals and release cash backing to all ministries, departments and agencies in good time.