Mr Abdullahi Candido, the Chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) has signed N9.99 billion 2018 budget into law.
Candido signed the budget in the presence of the council members in Abuja, saying the process of the 2018 budget began a long time with input from all stakeholders.
Other activities marking the budget signing was the official renaming of the council’s secretariat in Apo after Hon Zephaniah Jisalo, former chairman of the council, now a federal lawmaker in the House of Representatives.
While signing the budget, Candido called on council members to be honest, disciplined and prudent in the discharge of their duties, adding that due process must be followed in all their financial transactions.
He charged the council members to work towards a better performance of the budget by ensuring that due processes were being adhered to.
He said that communities in the AMAC must not be shortchanged from benefiting from the developmental projects as captured in the 2018 budget.
The chairmen restated his commitment to provide social services to residents of AMAC and called on the department in charge of works to ensure pending projects are completed before July 2018 while new projects must be completed before May 2019.
“Now is the time for service delivery because we can now generate additional revenue and with this, all ongoing projects will be completed before 20th May, 2019, when the present administration will clock two years in office.
“All we are desirous of doing now is to improve infrastructure for the people, and we hope to begin work with the support of the people from March, April and May,” he said.
He blamed the poor performance in 2017 on hitches in revenue collection which led to it being stopped and delay in budget passage.
Candido said that now that the council had been given the go ahead to collect revenue, “we hope things will get better.”