FROM: Dappa Maharajah.
GOVERNOR Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) has signed the 2017 appropriation bill with a provision of one hundred and seventy billion, eight hundred and forty-six million, five hundred and eighty thousand naira (N170, 846, 580,000.00) into law.
Akeredolu, while signing the bill that was passed into law yesterday in Akure, decried poor status of budget in the nation over the years, lamenting that no nation can develop when recurrent expenditure exceeds capital expenditure.
“The huge deficits which exist in various sectors of our socio-economic life need be tackled frontally. Our administration has tried to reduce the embarrassing imbalance between recurrent and capital expenditure: we are eating our future,” he said.
Meanwhile, there was an increment in the bill the governor had initially sent from N169,720,580 billion to N170,846,580 naira, with a difference of one billion, one hundred and twenty six thousand naira.
The appropriation bill with an increment of one point N1.1 billion has the sum of ninety five billion one hundred and fifty nine million two hundred thousand (N95.159b) as recurrent expenditure and N8.374b as statutory transfers.
While fifty nine billion, one hundred and eighty six million six hundred and eighty one thousand, eight hundred and eighty four naira (N59.187billiion) was meant for recurrent expenditure. The rest N8.127b was earmarked for debt service.
His words: “Our people expect no less from their representatives. They wait, anxiously, for any intervention which serves as a realistic palliative to the excruciating pains experienced at present.
“These fiscal estimates have been scrutinized, meticulously, to capture the aspirations of this administration on real development. It is important to state that the government has initiated special intervention strategies on agriculture, job creation, infrastructure, education, technology and rural development.”
He assured that his administration would take great steps to depart from the practice wherein a disproportionate percentage of budgetary allocation is expended on recurrent expenditure.
Governor Akeredolu, who lauded the Assembly for a thorough work, also pledged to cater for the teeming unemployed population that are not captured in the formal sector, saying they too would feel the positive impacts of governance.
“This administration is not unmindful of the dire challenges faced by it, with regards to Budget implementation, mainly due to paucity of funds. We are, however, determined to improve our fiscal circumstances, substantially, through revenue generation.
“We shall devise means of plugging loopholes exploited by unscrupulous elements to deny the state of deserved revenue. We shall expand our tax base, aggressively,” he said.
Akeredolu sought the cooperation of major stakeholders, especially the civil servants. “I assent to the 2017 Appropriation Bill and look forward to giving an account of its implementation before the commencement of the next fiscal year.”
Whereas, a pro-democracy group in the state, Committee of Concerned Citizens of Ondo State (CCCOS), had filed a suit challenging the mode through which the governor transmitted the appropriation bill to the state Assembly.
In the suit filed by Messrs Rasheed Akinbolaji, Fagun Kayode, Akinbote David, Olubodun Tayo Marcus, Adesemoye Segun, Adeniranye Anthony and Adeyosoye, CCCOS sought for a declaration that the mode of the budget presentation violated section 121 (1) of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria as amended.
The CCCOS suit filed on behalf of the organization by their lawyer, Mr Samuel Folorunso has the state House of Assembly, the Speaker, the Clerk, Chairman of Appropriation Committee and the state governor as defendants.
The plaintiffs argued in their originating summons that the officials of the House cannot appropriate on the state 2017 budget sent to it by Governor Akeredolu because the constitution only made provision for the budget being laid and not being transmitted as done by the governor.
“Section 121 of the constitution states that the governor shall cause to be prepared and laid before the House of Assembly at any time before the commencement of each financial year estimates of the revenue and expenditure of the State for the next following financial year.”
The group warned that failure to act in accordance with the constitution by the state governor would render the action of the Assembly null and void.
—
Akingboye Joseph Oluwaseun
