Ajimobi Presents N165bn Budget Estimates

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The Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, has presented a 165 billion Naira budget proposal for the 2016 fiscal year before the State House of Assembly, with an economic re-engineering plan to shore up the revenues accruable to the state.

The Governor, while making the presentation of the budget tagged ‘Budget of Renewed Commitment’ on the floor of the Assembly on Wednesday, said that the proposal was guided by his administration’s desire to implement a four-cardinal programme in 2016.

According to him, the 2016 fiscal year also aims at solidifying the on-going process of physical and social infrastructural development in the state.

While the sum of 2.37 billion Naira, representing 35.88 per cent, was allocated to recurrent expenditure, the capital expenditure would gulp 72.73 billion Naira, representing 44.10 per cent of the budget.

The sectoral allocation consists of economy 39.90 billion Naira representing 54.85 per cent; social services 13.60 billion Naira, 18.63 per cent; urban regional development 8.10 billion Naira, 11.17 per cent and general administration 11.20 billion Naira, 15.85 per cent.

Governor Ajimobi said that his administration would employ carefully designed expenditure switching and expedite reduction strategies from the 2016 fiscal year, stressing that this would enable it identify and focus more on the people’s needs rather than their wants.

The Governor, however, highlighted the four cardinal programmes to include agriculture for food security, employment generation and poverty alleviation; education and human capital development; infrastructural development as well as peace and security.

He disclosed that the performance of the 2015 budget was badly affected by the sharp drop in the price of crude in the internationalMARKET resulting in consistently dwindling national revenue as reflected in the substantial reduction in statutory allocation from the Federation Account.

The Governor further said that intelligence and policy reports had indicated that there might be greater oil glut in 2016 with its dire consequences on the movements in the price of crude oil in the international market.

He said that the state had no choice but to be inward-looking and less-dependent on net-based revenue for its fiscal operations, adding “we must change our ways of doing business”.

According to him, this has necessitated the restructuring and repositioning of the State Board of Internal Revenue Service and other income-generating agencies and that the ministries, departments and agencies must be cost-effective in their operations and efficient in their service delivery.

He said that the development was expected to increase the Internally Generated Revenue by about 400 per cent, that is, from its present 1.2 billion Naira to about 5 billion Naira per month in 2016.

Governor Ajimobi also said that the expenditure switching and reduction strategies would be greatly enhanced by greater reliance on the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework in the provision of public goods and services.

Consequently, he said that the 2016 budgetary proposals would be anchored on some philosophy and policy thrust which would include adoption of a modified zero-based budgeting framework to guide project prioritization and informed budgetary allocation to various projects

Governor Ajimobi added that the public service would be restructured for improved productivity through the implementation of the 13-ministry structure with other departments and agencies restructured accordingly.

In his address, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Mr Michael Adeyemo, thanked the people of the state for renewing the Ajimobi administration’s mandate and for their continued support, understanding and cooperation in taking governance to an enviable height.

Mr Adeyemo pledged the speedy passage of the budget as well as the support of the lawmakers to Governor Ajimobi.