More than one week after the Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA) passed the state’s 2019 budget of N873.532 billion on April 29, the lawmakers have yet to transmit the appropriation bill back to the executive arm of government for the governor’s assent.
A member of the state executive council (exco) confirmed to BusinessDay on the phone that the budget was yet to be transmitted to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, whose tenure comes to an end on May 29.
Until the appropriation bill is signed into effect by the governor, it cannot be implemented as it will amount to a breach of the constitution to draw from the budget, BusinessDay gathered from conversations with legal experts.
Although the 2018 budget subsists till end of May this year, the delay that has so far characterised the 2019 appropriation law in Lagos, with Nigeria just emerging from an election, is indeed taking a toll on the state as some projects provided for in the budget remain stalled.
There is also a general lull in governance in Nigeria’s biggest state economy. Checks in the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) show little is happening, even as some programmes peculiar to certain ministries and planned for the first quarter of the year have either been cancelled or postponed indefinitely for lack of funding.
No official reasons have been offered by the state legislature on why the budget hasn’t been transmitted to the executive. Calls and text messages to the GSM phones of Mudaishiru Obasa, speaker of the House, and Funmilayo Tejuosho, chairman, House Committee on Information and Strategy, at about 12:49pm and 12:46pm, respectively, on Wednesday seeking explanations were yet to receive responses at the time of this report.
A source, however, told BusinessDay that the Lagos State House of Assembly has a standing instruction from the powers that be in the state not to transmit the budget to Ambode. The source further alleged that the House was even scolded for having passed the budget in the first place.
The legislature passed the 2019 budget of N873.532 billion on April 29, after raising it from N852.317 billion originally presented to the House by Ambode in February. The budget consists of N479.691 billion capital expenditure and N393.841 billion recurrent expenditure.
“The governor cannot sign what hasn’t been sent to him. When the budget is transmitted to the executive, the governor will study it and sign,” said the state exco member.
He added, however, that the delay in the budget was not to the interest of the economy as public spending has positive multiplier effect on private businesses and employment generation.
When contacted on the issue, however, Olusegun Banjo, Lagos State commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, said, “We will get back to you on the budget.”
Adetokunbo Mumuni, legal practitioner and executive director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in an interview with BusinessDay, said it remains unconstitutional and illegal to draw from the budget unless signed.
Mumuni added, however, that if for any reason the governor does not sign the budget before exiting office on May 29, the incoming governor would have to sign it to be able to spend it legally.
Before passing the budget on April 29, the lawmakers had devoted time to interrogate some of Ambode’s ‘legacy projects’, including the Oshodi Transport Interchange (OTI) and purchase of 820 new buses under the Bus Reform Initiative (BRI).
The House Committee on Budget and Finance chaired by Gbolahan Yishawu, it was learnt, had recommended that monies budgeted for the completion of the above mentioned projects be expunged from the 2019 budget.
However, during a debate on the committee’s report, Rotimi Abiru, chief whip of the House, suggested that rather than deleting the monies for the projects from the budget, they should be transferred to a Special Expenditure Fund.
The implication of transferring the monies to a Special Expenditure Fund is that the outgoing governor cannot access the monies without recourse to the legislature.
It was gathered that the House chose to put the monies in Special Expenditure Fund because the legislators needed more information and explanation on the affected projects from the executive.
JOSHUA BASSEY
