Oyo State Government has revised its 2019 budget from N285 billion approved in 2018 by the former administration, to N182 billion. This represents a 57% downward review in the state’s budget.
The Governor of the State, Engr. Seyi Makinde announced the revised budget for the state while signing the 2019 Appropriation Review and Finance Bill on Wednesday at the Executive Council Chambers in the State.
Reason for the review: According to the Governor, the N285 billion budget proposed by the previous administration was unrealistic, and the downward review was necessary due to the current financial position of the state.
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The Governor maintained that the economic status of the state had made it compulsory to embark on downward review in what he described as “the over-bloated budget presented by the immediate past administration.”
The Governor’s statement read: “This afternoon, I signed the Oyo State Appropriation Review and Finance Bill, 2019, a revised budget for the state, into law. In view of the current financial state of our state, the budget of N285 billion approved by the previous administration was unrealistic.
“When we came in, we met a budget of N285 billion. We went on the revenue profile and we are receiving N5 billion monthly from the federal allocation. Our internally generated revenue is N2 billion, making it N7 billion roughly monthly and if I multiply that by 12, that is N84 billion.
“We need to cut our cloth not according to our size, but available material. We came in when money had been spent to the fifth month of the year. We looked at the profile and if we continue on the path at the end of the year, we could only achieve 25% to 38% budget performance.”
The breakdown of the budget: The Oyo State Assembly had on Tuesday passed the reviewed 2019 Appropriation Bill after it scaled through the third reading.
- The new bill, which saw the initial N285 billion passed by the Eight Assembly and signed into law by the immediate past Governor was cut down to N182.4 billion, as the 100% subvention was restored to all the state-owned institutions.
- With the new appropriation, the recurrent expenditure was jacked up from N94.2 billion to N98.7 billion as proposed by the executive and the capital expenditure was increased from N76.7 billion to N83.6 billion.
- While providing breakdown, Engr. Makinde noted that the review included upward review of the budget for education to 10%.
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Speaking on the development, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Adebo Ogundoyin, who led other lawmakers to the ceremony, stated that the Appropriation Bill that was signed into law came at a perfect time, adding that it was the usual norm that budgets were always over-bloated, but the case took a new dimension under the current administration.
“So, we decided that our target for the years would be at least 70% budget performance. Of course, we are aware that there may be an issue of ego here, that we may want to feel belong. We want the state to get to the $1 billion budget club. But, I want to give you the assurance that the day we attain that status of $1 billion budget state, under this administration will not be a photo-trick.”
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