Plateau defends N13bn allocation to SSG office

The Plateau State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Chrysanthus Dawam, has defended the state 2024 budgetary allocations to various sectors of the economy.

This includes an allocation of N13bn to the Office of the Secretary to the State Government and N100 million only to the Ministry of Tourism and its agencies.

Dawam, who gave the breakdown of the budget estimates during a meeting with journalists in Jos on Friday, also disclosed that  N8.6bn was allocated to the Government House while the legislative arm got N10.14 billion.

The state governor, Caleb Mutfwang, had in December last year signed the state N314.8bn  2024 budget into law after it was passed by the state House of Assembly with N162 bn and N152 bn as recurrent and capital expenditures respectively

The commissioner noted that the N13bn fund allocated to the SGS office was for administration and capital expenditures, adding that the budget tagged ‘Budget of New Beginning' was aimed at laying a solid foundation for the peace and prosperity of the state

Dawam said, “The government has allocated the sum of N100m only for representing 0.07 % of the total estimate for tourism activities in the state.

“I cannot tell you that specific amount  has been allocated to security because that is under classified  but the intention and desire of the government is to address the current security challenges of the state as well as infrastructural and human capital development deficit within available resources ”

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget, Peter Lamba added, “The office of the Secretary to the State Government coordinates a lot of activities and of course, part of the fund allocated to it  will go into addressing the security challenge we have.”

A breakdown of other sectoral allocations showed that the agricultural and rural development subsector was allocated the sum of N12.04 bn while the Commerce and Industries subsector got N134.6m

The detailed allocation also showed that the information and communications subsector got N1.1 bn; the Land and Justice sub-sector, N7.02bn; Science and Technology, N772 m; Land and Survey, N335.5 m; Housing and Urban Development, N9.9 bn; Education, N10.4 bn; Health, N5.4 bn; Works and Transport, N15.3 bn; Women, Youths and Sports sub-sector, N1.3 bn among others.

The commissioner encouraged all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government to adhere to the basic principles of budget implementation throughout the fiscal year.

He reminded them that the state fiscal, transparency and sustainability framework is key and urged them to comply to enable the state to benefit from the grants that the federal government kept in the common pool for the states to draw based on performance.