>
By Emmanuel Adeleke
The Oyo State House of Assembly has passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill N438 billion into law.
This is higher than the initial N434 billion presented to the House of Assembly by state governor, Engr Seyi Makinde.
The budget was passed after the presentation of the report of the House Committee on Finance, Appropriation and State Economic Planning by its Clchairman, Hon Sunkanmi Babaloja.
Recall that the 2024 Appropriation Bill was presented to the state legislature on Tuesday December 5, 2023.
With this development, there is an upward review of N4,226,112,609.60 in the budget.
In the budget, recurrent expenditure for 2024 changed from N211,884,445,738.94 presented by the governor to N213,538,475,738.94.
The capital expenditure also increased to N224,909,402,809.45 from the N222,337,320,199.85 earlier proposed.
The Speaker, Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin, who presided over the plenary commended all the committee members and other lawmakers that worked round the clock to ensure early passage of the budget.
Ogundoyin said the house made some upward review of the 2024 Appropriation Bill to reflect the current economic realities and situations in the country, and to cater for some critical sectors.
“Special thanks to the House Committee on Finance, Appropriation and State Economic Planning for a thorough job done on the budget which led to the speedy completion of the process. I will like to also appreciate Oyo State Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies for cooperating with the House of Assembly in this regard. I am optimistic that the budget will help drive the economic recovery agenda of Governor Seyi Makinde in the upcoming year.
“This is just the beginning of our job as lawmakers. We will hit the ground running. We will embark on full legislative oversight to ensure optimum performance of the budget. We have told our MDAs to be ready to work their fingers to the bone towards the full and successful implementation of the 2024 Budget,” Ogundoyin said.