Ajimobi, Ahmed Present Oyo, Kwara Budgets

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State yesterday presented a budget of N207.671 billion for the 2017 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly. This represents an increase of 19.13 percent compared to this year’s budget.

His Kwara State counterpart Abdulfatah Ahmed also presented a budget estimate of N135,064,529,461 to the State of Assembly for consideration.

A breakdown of the appropriation bill tagged “Budget of Introspection and Sustenance,” showed an increase of N23,682,157,934 representing 21.2 percent of the 2016 revised budget.

A further review indicated that economic affairs got the highest share of N35,437,302,393 representing 26 percent of the total budget, followed by education accounting for N29,936,179,606 while general public services came third with N26,497,822,611.

N57,479,632,894, representing 42.5 per cent was earmarked as recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure got N70,986,667,592 while N6,798,228,975 would be used to service public debt.

Ajimobi, while presenting the document titled “Budget of Self-Reliance,” explained that N126.87 billion which is 61.09 per cent would be for recurrent expenditure while capital expenditure will take N80.80 billion or 38.91 per cent.

He stated that allocation to personnel cost made up of salaries, allowances and promotion arrears stands at N56.04 billion or 26.99 per cent while overhead cost accounts for N20.04 billion which is 9.75 per cent, adding that N50.79 billion or 24.45 is for the Consolidated Revenue Fund Charges, to sum up, the total recurrent expenditure of N126.87 billion.

He said the budget had been designed to be Internal Generated Revenue (IGR)-driven, emphasising that N107.23 billion or 51.64 per cent of the proposed N207.671 billion is to be funded from IGR, N66.49 billion or 32.01 percent from the federation account while N33.97 billion or 16.35 per cent is expected from capital receipts, which is restructuring and reallocation of funds to priority areas.

He stated that the government anchored the 2017 budgetary proposals on infrastructure, agriculture and its value-chain framework, education and health.

While lamenting the state’s poor revenue this year, Ajimobi said as, at September 30, the overall budget performance was 46.09 per cent or N79.939 billion out of the N173.429 billion approved for 2016.