Malam Nasir @elrufai has signed the 2019 Budget of Continuity. The budget size is N157.44bn, of which N94bn is capital expenditure. 
Malam Nasir @elrufai has also signed the N62.34bn 2019 budget of the 23 Local Government Councils
Malam Nasir @elrufai is making his remarks at the signing of the 2019 budgets of the state government and the 23 local government councils
I wish to welcome you all to this budget signing event. On 15th August 2018, we had the privilege to present the draft 2019 Budget estimates to the Kaduna State House of Assembly. Our hardworking legislators have since deliberated on and passed the budget.
Today, we are signing into law the 2019 Budget for Kaduna State.
We are delighted that a new tradition has now been established to pass and sign our state budget in the preceding year. This is a product of the partnership between the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the Executive Branch.
Each of the budgets prepared by this government has become law by 1st January of the budget year.
In 2019, for the fourth straight year, the new financial year for the Kaduna State Government will begin on the first day of January. This alignment of the fiscal and calendar year for the budget of the state government is being extended to the budget of the 23 local govts...
For the first time in the history of Kaduna State, we are signing the annual budgets for the state government and the 23 local government councils on the same date. This means that our local government councils will also begin the financial year on the first day of the new year.
The approved budget size for 2019 is N157.449bn. The capital component is N94.47bn, while recurrent expenditure is N62.97bn. This is slightly bigger than the proposed 2019 Budget of N155.86bn but it retains the 60:40 capital to recurrent ratio.
Reflecting our commitment to human capital development, the Social Sector, including Education and Health takes up N39.14bn or 41% of the N94bn capital budget. Education has a capital budget of N25.4bn, while Health has N13.1bn, a concrete way to promote equality of opportunity.
It is a consistent pattern of our budgeting that the social sector takes the largest chunk of capital commitments. Thus, while the overall budget size is smaller than it was in previous years, the proportion we devote to human capital development does not shrink.
We remain resolute in implementing our education reforms which aim to improve the quality of education offered in our public schools. For many of us, government schools gave us the education that enabled us to rise above the circumstances of our birth.
We owe the children of ordinary people a duty to restore public education as a lever for social mobility.
The programme to improve infrastructure in the Education sector has been hampered by the irresponsible denial at the Senate of our $350m World Bank loan. But we soldier on with the resources we have.
I am happy to report that we have completed the recruitment of 25,000 new primary school teachers. We are now recruiting 7600 teachers for the public secondary schools.
In the Health sector, 150 of our target 255 primary health centres have now been rehabilitated. In 2019, we expect to recruit 3000 health professionals to strengthen the primary health care sector.
Following the passage of the law establishing the Contributory Health Management Authority, the contributory health insurance scheme will take off in Kaduna State early in 2019.
