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By Emmanuel Adeleke
Oyo State Governor, Engr. Oluseyi Makinde, has approved the promotion of all civil and public servants whose promotions were due in 2022.
Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Dotun Oyelade, disclosed this during a media briefing after the state’s executive council meeting.
The commissioner, who recalled that the Makinde-led administration conducted the 2017-2021 promotion exercises, said the development is consistent with the current administration’s policy on workers’ welfare in the past four years.
Speaking, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Prof. Musbau Babatunde, said the executive has approved the realignment of the 2023 supplementary budgetto be presented to the House of Assembly for approval.
He said the decision was necessitated by the twin economic policy of subsidy removal and the unification of exchange rate which has led to some shifts in macro-economic fundamentals in the state, with respect to inflation, exchange and interest rates.
The commissioner said the state government took into consideration certain projects that are ongoing, which are overridden by costs.
He noted the requests by MDAs on the need to situate their current budget performance in the context of the shift in macroeconomic fundamentals.
Babatunde said the increment in the 2023 budget size is from N310,432,500,000.00
to the sum of N352,382,500,000.00
The commissioner also said idle funds in some MDAs have been realigned in line with the current economic realities, stressing that the state government is currently negotiating with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and decisions taken from the meeting will be included in the realigned supplementary budget.
He said Medium Term Expenditure Framework (2024-2026) on which the 2024 budget will be premised has been approved by the Exco.
“The approved figure for this is N424,410,611,938.00
“This is an increase of N69,237,658,025.00, which represents 19.49% over the 2023 pre-empted figure of N355,172,953,913.00/” Babatunde said.
He said the current realigned budget of N352,382,500,000.00 mirrors the Oyo State Government’s projection perfectly for year 2023.
“We expect the Medium Term Expenditure Framework to be a good guide for the fiscal balance of the year 2024 budget,” he said.
Babatunde added that the Executive council meeting approved implementation of the Oyo State Social Protection Document, developed in conjunction with UNICEF.
He said the implementation department, which will be supervised by his office, with the support of relevant agencies, will reduce the challenges of poverty incidents in the state.