The Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde has presented a budget proposal of N310b for the 2023 fiscal year, tagged: Budget of Sustainable Development, to the state House of Assembly.
Governor Makinde described sustainable development as the aim of the government to meet the needs of the people on the side of the transition without compromising the ability of the next administration to meet their own needs, premising the budget on proposed Internally Generated Revenue of N83.5b; statutory allocation capped at N50 and Value Added Tax, VAT, put at N60b, in addition to other streams of income.
While the proposal, which he said is an indication of movement from accelerated to sustainable development, put the capital expenditure at N154. 348b, representing 49.79% of the total budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year, the recurrent expenditure (50.21%) stands at N155.651b.
According to the proposal, “Infrastructure got the highest allocation of N85.7billion, which represents 27.65% of the budget proposal, followed by education with N58. 2b (18.78%), Healthcare: N36.3b (11.73%) and Agriculture: N11.1b, which is 3.61% of the total budget.”
Governor Makinde explained that the government allocated more funds to Infrastructure as a sure path to accelerated development, and his efforts at continuing in that stride for sustainable development.
He said the state had maintained its record of allocating funds for education that conform to UNESCO standards of 15-20% of the budget.
He recounted that his administration, in previous years, carried out various projects and efforts that led to an increase in the monthly IGR from N1.7b in 2018 to an average of about N3.3b and N5.1b with special items in 2022.
On the budget performance up to the third quarter of the year 2022, Governor Makinde said that although the administration may not have attained its projected budgetary performance of 70 to 75%, it had doubled the performance from the years before he came into office.
He stated: “So far, we have achieved a revenue performance of 59.78 percent and an expenditure performance of 54.88 percent. We expect to go above the 60 percent mark at the close of the year. We believe that our people deserve good governance and that we must deliver good governance to them to the very end of our tenure.
“So, just as we did in 2020 and 2021, we held town hall meetings in all seven geopolitical zones to get the input of the good people of Oyo State into this budget. Again, we have a budget which reflects the wishes of our people. I have the honour of presenting the proposal for the Three Hundred and Ten Billion Naira (310,000,000,000) 2023 Budget of Sustainable Development,” the Governor said.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin, expressed optimism that the budget would be used to solidify and consolidate the development foundation laid since 2019 which had given the administration an edge over all past administrations in Oyo State, especially in terms of infrastructure growth, education development and socio-economic transformation.
He appealed to all heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to get set for the defence of their budget proposals before the standing committees of the House, stressing that the 2023 Budget proposal would record a higher level of performance than the 2022 Budget with full cooperation from all stakeholders.
Ogundoyin said: “Our budget has always been people- and development-centred and the 2023 appropriation which is to the tune of N310b is surely not going to be an exception. We can say without any fear of contradiction that the budget for the outgoing year 2022 recorded outstanding performances. Kudos to all stakeholders for ensuring the successful implementation and execution of the budget.”
The Speaker promised that the Assembly would again be aggressive in performing its duties in ensuring complete implementation and monitoring of the 2023 Budget to achieve its set goals and desired results while maintaining necessary checks on all arms of government and not compromising on democratic ethics and ideals.
The budget presentation was attended by top government functionaries, traditional rulers community leaders, sectoral leaders, trade unions and artisans groups and party leaders, among other stakeholders.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
