The Niger state government said it is adopting Treasury Single Account, TSA, for all its ministries and parastatals as a means of blocking leakages and wastage of public funds.
The state governor, Abubakar Sani Bello who stated this while presenting the 2016 budget proposals to the state House of Assembly on Wednesday, December 31, 2015, said the TSA will be introduced in 2016 in line with the government’s determination to eliminate corruption in the system.
In 2015 the Federal Government approved the streamlining of all government accounts into the Treasury Single Account, citing similar concerns of weeding out corrupt practices.
According to the governor, the worsening economic situation of the country occasioned by dwindling oil revenues call for a rethink on
diversifying sources of revenue and ways of judiciously expending the resources.
Governor Bello also attributed some of the fiscal challenges faced by the government to inability of the state to meet up with its Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, target.
He said, in addition to looking into other sources of funding and prioritizing government spending, his administration is also determined to recover monies stolen from the state. “I must emphasise
that this Administration has zero tolerance for corruption. Stolen funds will be recovered and proven cases of corruption dealt with
accordingly” he added.
Explaining the N74.7 billion budget, Governor Bello stated that his government had drawn the budget after taking a close look at the needs
of the state emanating from a study conducted by special committees in the outgoing year by the administration.
“Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in drawing the 2016 Budget, the Government was guided by the global economic trend of fall in the price of crude oil, our internal revenue capacity, anticipated drawn-downs from Development Partners and the Special Intervention
Funds.”
Some of the areas he said the budget will focuses on wealth creation and job creation through youth empowerment programmes, agricultural development, upgrading and rehabilitation of health facilities and services, completion of all on-going road projects and construction of new roads.
“We budgeted to spend N 4.29 billion in Education; N 3.59 billion in Infrastructural Development; N 2.61 billion in Health; N 2.53 billion in Agriculture and Rural development; N 2.38Billion in Water Resources,” the governor explained.
He said the N74.7 billion budget will be financed from expected receipts including N35,7 billion from statutory allocation, N9.8 billion as Value-Added Tax (VAT) and similar amounts as Internally Generated Revenue, IGR as well as N19.6 as capital receipts.
Shedding light on the budget proposals shortly after the presentation in Minna, Mr. Abdulberqy Ebbo, a Senior Special Assistant in the Governor Bello-led government, clarifies that the proposals are based on pragmatic reforms championed by the government since inauguration on on May 29. “Having reduced the number of ministries from 23 to 14, Governor Bello prepares to cut down recurrent expenditure in the 2016 budget and save money for capital projects,” said Mr. Ebbo.
