• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Abiodun assents to N449.97bn Ogun 2020 budget with slight CAPEX increase 

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Having made a slight increase in favour of capital expenditure as against recurrent expenditure by State House of Assembly, Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun state on Monday assented to the N449.97 billion Appropriation Bill prepared for 2020 fiscal year.
Recall that Governor Abiodun had earlier presented a N449.97 billion Appropriation Bill before the State House of Assembly which was passed last week with a slight upward adjustment of N2.1 billion to the capital expenditure, increasing the capital expenditure to N271.2 billion as against N269.1 billion earlier voted for capital expenditure, while recurrent expenditure now stands at N178.8 billion.
The slight upward adjustment done to the capital expenditure now brings CAPEX to 60.3% as against the 60% earlier quoted in the Appropriation Bill which is still within the confines of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) which projects 5% systematic increase of three-year fiscal plan, starting from 60% for 2020; 65% for 2021 and 70% for 2022.
Speaking at a brief event which took place on Monday at the Governor’s office, Oke-Mosan in Abeokuta, State capital, Governor Dapo Abiodun lauded the members of the House of assembly for passing the budget in record time and pledged to implement the first budget of his administration to the latter.
He said, “Let me appreciate our members of the Ogun State House of Assembly who have demonstrated their commitment, who have demonstrated their knowledge of what this assignment entails, they have also demonstrated their patriotism for this State.
“I know for a fact that this, they have done despite other responsibilities we have saddled them with which included the screening of Commissioner-nominees, it has taken them a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of sleepless night, they broke up into different committees.
“They didn’t just gloss over the budget, they interrogate it line by line because I had opportunities at different points in time of having the Speaker himself engaged me on a number of items which I have to refer back to them, it was properly worked on and it shows the depth and quality of people in our House of Assembly.
“On the part of the Executive, our administration will further be underscored by the implementation of this budget, that is indeed how we can demonstrate the appreciation to the speedy passage of the budget and to the citizens of this state by extension.
“We will ensure that this budget is implemented to the latter to ensure that all the assumptions that have been made, particularly in the area of revenue generation, that it becomes a reality and we will follow through on our vision which over and over again, we are reminded of, which is to provide a focused and qualitative governance, while creating an enabling environment for Public Private Partnership across Ogun State.
“That is very fundamental to the economic growth of this state because if there’s economic growth, there would be individual prosperity. We manage as much as we could from the budget that we inherited, now that we have had this our budget successfully passed, I believe, we will be able to do much more with the budget that is originally ours.”
Earlier in his very short speech, Olakunle Oluomo, the Speaker, said that the passing of the budget within a record time demonstrated the importance attached to the budget and the determination of the assent to work with the administration.

 

RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta