>
The Oyo State House of Assembly on Tuesday passed the Oyo State 2016 budget, the sum of N173, 769,404,444 billion.
In the document, N100,651,599,183 billion is for recurrent expenditure, while N73,117,805,261 billion is budgeted for capital expenditure.
The initial amount presented by the executive in December 2015 was N165,097,845,486 but the recurrent expenditure got an upward review of 8.7 per cent while capital expenditure went 0.05 per cent upwards, giving the budget an increase by 5.2 per cent.
Presenting the report of the Public Finance and Appropriation Committee, Hon. Bolanle Agbaje, head of the committee, observed that the budget performance of the preceding year was rather low due to the paucity of funds, but noted that the state government has now adopted the modified zero based budgeting for a more realistic approach.
She also stated that there was critical consideration of items of expenditure to ensure that priority is giving to the basic need of socio-economical development of the state.
On why some sections of the budget got upward reviews, Agbaje said it was:
“…to make adequate provision for payment of pension and gratuity for retired local government staffs, to improve sporting activities, funding of newly established tertiary institutions in the state and to sustain local governments”
The Speaker, Hon. Michael Adeyemo, further explained that the increases were made due to some exigencies.
His words:
“The reason for the amendment was that the newly approved institutions in the state has to be funded for their take off. We also realise that sporting activity in the state needs improvement. There is no significant improvement in the budget in the places where you see huge amount of money, it was only due to some errors in the calculations of the appropriation which has been resolved. Before we passed the budget, we met with the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning and we inform them about our discoveries and it was resolved.
“The budget tends to address the critical needs of the state, when you look at the pension fund and infrastructural development was well taking care of, and for the first time the budget considered the sensitivity of the Ministry of Agriculture in terms of looking inward for the provision of employment for the youth.”
What’s your Reaction?
Like
0
Dislike
0
Laugh
0
Angry
0
Sad
0
Accurate
0