Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode on Thursday presented the Year 2016 Budget proposal of N665.588 billion to the House of Assembly, pledging that his administration will not only implement the budget faithfully, but also ensure that it works in the best interest of Lagosians.
The budget is a 26 percent improvement on 2014 and 2015 budgets respectively which stood at N489.6 billion individually.
“The increase will enable our government to focus on the present challenges of security, traffic gridlock resolution including physical and social infrastructural development which has thrown up new challenges quite different from what we used to experience and have always known”, he said.
He said the 2016 budget which is the first full budget of the present administration will promote massive investment in Security, Transport and Traffic management, Physical and Social Infrastructural development and enhance job creation.
He said the intention of his government is to use the 2016 budget to strategically build new infrastructure, as well as maintain existing ones, adding that wealth and employment creation will also receive adequate attention in the course of the year.
Giving a breakdown of the budget figures, Governor Ambode put the Recurrent Expenditure at N278,909 billion while Capital Expenditure stands at N383,678 billion, explaining that the Capital to Recurrent ratio is 58:42 as against 51:49 in 2014 and 2015.
Here is how the Governor earmarked the budget:
N120,508,571,598 for General Public Services, representing 18.19 percent.
N28,559,021,841 to Public Order and Safety, representing 4.31 percent.
Economic Affairs received a lion share of N211,043,408,183 representing 31.85 percent.
Environment got N53,043,599,505 representing 8.1 percent.
Housing and Community Amenities, got N62,713,091,867 representing 9.46 percent.
Health got N64,677,679,096 representing 9.76 percent.
Recreation, Culture and Religion has N4,636,917,054 which is 0.70 percent of the budget.
Education sector received N113,379,337,664 representing 17.11 percent.
Social Protection got N4,025,980,116, which is 0.61 of the budget.
The Governor stated that due to the falling oil prices, the budget is pegged on $38 dollar per barrel saying it was in line to maintain a conservative approach in estimating the Federal allocation for 2016.
