Plateau State House of Assembly has slashed N7 billion out of the budget proposal submitted by Governor Simon Lalong.‬
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The Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Jacob Kassam, stated this yesterday while presenting the report of the committee on the floor of the House.‬

‪It would be recalled that Governor Lalong had on December 31, 2015 presented to the House a proposed budget of N154 billion, but the House reduced it to N146 billion due to economic challenges.‬

‪The appropriation committee chairman, who gave reasons for the slash, said “The sub-committees were compelled to cut down expenditure based on the impact of the current economy resulting from the falling price of oil, with negative consequences on our earnings as a nation that is so heavily dependent on foreign earnings from oil.‬

‪”By virtue of the power invested in the House in Section 100 sub section (1 and 2) of the constitution and also in compliance with Order 11 (6a) b (i and ii) of the House Standing Rules, the budget which was committed to the appropriation committee on January 20 stipulates that all standing committees of the House shall for this purpose disintegrate to sub-committees where agencies under their jurisdiction defend their proposals.”.

‪According to the committee, the budget tagged ‘Budget of Rescue and Hope’ is the first to be presented to the eight Assembly.‬

‪He said the goal is to reduce sufferings by uplifting the quality of life of the people.‬
‪”The 2016 budget is zero-based due to the drastic fall in revenue from the federation account and the state government is faced with looking inwards in order to boost revenue from other sources.”

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House of assembly slashes 7 billion from budget presented by Lalong