• Asks Lawmaker To Remove N7.1bn ‘Added’ To Budget
• Lawmakers Add N2.2bn Eventually
Report has it that Governor Seyi Makinde is angry with members of the Oyo State House of Assembly for adding N7.1b to the 2021 budget he proposed.
This became obvious few hours after the governor sent the names of the Oyo State Anti-corruption agency led by retired Justice Eni Esan.
Rather than prepare for signing, Makinde Tuesday afternoon returned the approved budget to the assembly.
A report by Oyoinsight, was quoted “Multiple government sources, who confided in it source, said that Makinde asked them to remove the N7.1 billion added to the initial proposal.
Some lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that they have the right to subtract and add to budget proposed by the executive.
This newspaper recalls that Makinde had initially proposed a total budget sum of N266.6 billion for 2021 fiscal year but was upwardly reviewed by the assembly to the sum of N273.7 billion.
Further investigation revealed that the development unsettled the leadership of the assembly.
“The governor had told them from the beginning that he does not want the budget proposal go beyond N266.6 billion. Maybe there was a communication gap between the leadership of the assembly and the affected committee, they went ahead to jerk it up. It did not go down well with Governor Seyi Makinde,” a source explained.
Justifying the increment, chairman of the committee on public account, finance and appropriation, Hon. Akeem Mustapha, had, last Tuesday, been quoted as saying that the ammendment proposed that the sum of over N136 billion be replaced with the sum of over N137 billion for total recurrent expenditure.
For total capital expenditures, the amendment proposed of over N130.3 billion was replaced with over N136.1 billion.
Mustapha, who represents Kajola state constituency, had explained further that when ministries, departments and agencies came for their budget defense, the house saw the need for upward review of the budget to properly accommodate development for the entire state.
This was just as he said that the slight increase in the recurrent expenditure now stands at N1.3 billion (N1, 354 191 454.97 )while increase in capital expenditure now rose to N5.7 billion (N5, 722 123 209.59).
That same Tuesday, speaker Adebo Ogundoyin had been quoted as corroborating Mustapha by noting that the recurrent and capital expenditure are so close because the State desire more infrastructural development in 2021.
However, the sum of N268.8 billion was yesterday passed by the state’s assembly as the 2021 Appropriation.
Mustapha, in his defense, established that there was nothing like padding in the budget passed on Tuesday, December 15, 2020.
He said that the House had made provision for government to obtain loans in the proposed budget to enable it to finance the budget.
This was just as he also confirmed that, the House realized that what was allocated to government as loan was high, saying that there is reason to revisit.
He, therefore, disclosed that “in order to pass a budget that will be realistic, there is need to reduce the loan components already allocated in the budget, and that was what we did by representing the budget and passed again”.
Source Oyoinsight
