Posted by By FEMI BABAFEMI, Lagos and KINGSLEY EMEREUWA, Umuahia on
Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu yesterday presented a N171.103 billion budget for the 2006 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly for consideration, even as his counterparts in Abia, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu and Ogun, Otunba Gbenga Daniel also proposed multi-billion naira budgets.
Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu yesterday presented a N171.103 billion budget for the 2006 fiscal year to the state House of Assembly for consideration, even as his counterparts in Abia, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu and Ogun, Otunba Gbenga Daniel also proposed multi-billion naira budgets.
Tagged "Budget of Triumph," the proposed Lagos budget surpassed that of the current year with over N58 billion, while a whopping sum of N94.195 billion will go on recurrent expenditure and N76.90 billion on capital expenditure.
In Abia, Dr Kalu presented a budget of N34.6 billion to the state lawmakers while Governor Daniel is setting aside a huge sum of N10.718 billion for education out of a total budget estimate of N48.48 billion.
While presenting the planned expenditure to the state lawmakers, Governor Tinubu said that though the figure may look gigantic, it is still far less than what should take care of the enormous needs of over 15 million people resident in the state.
Out of the total sum, only N30 billion is being expected as statutory allocation while over N81.83 billion will be sourced from internally generated revenue (IGR).
While stressing that the budget will be solely revenue driven, Tinubu charged state agencies to mobilise available resources at their disposal to improve on their present level of revenue generation.
According to him, "this will provide a platform for the state to continue its drive for financial independence as the statutory allocation from the federation account is no longer adequate, reliable and dependable to meet the state's wage bill and subventions to other agencies of government. In fact, from our experience in year 2004 and 2005 in particular, the statutory allocation is no longer statutory, it is now subject to arbitrary deductions and unconstitutional seizures."
He explained that the budget is predicated of his administration's resolve to complete all on-going projects and take on only those that would be completed before the expiration of his tenure.
"As the last full fiscal year for this administration before the year 2007 general elections, we are determined to become by our performance, a benchmark for evaluating subsequent state administrations," the governor added.
The Abia budget which is tagged Budget of Reformation is 39.5% or N9. 8 billion above that of 2005 which stood at 24.1 billion naira.
According to the estimate breakdown, the State Government hopes to realize the total of N2.1 billion from its Internally Generated Revenue, which increased by N282 million or 15.24% over the figure of 2005 that was N1.8 billion naira, while its external resources from which it hopes to raise the bulk of the appropriation fund will give the sum of N31.2 billion.
Of the above estimate, the Governor said the state hopes to get the sum of Twenty-one billion, six hundred million and ten naira from the statutory allocation from the Federation Account, seven billion above what it got from the same source last fiscal year, N5billion naira from derivation fund and Two billion, five hundred million from Value Added Tax.
The Governor in the address to the State Legislators noted that the projected Internally Generated Revenue is still an insignificant proportion of 6% of the State's External resources which calls for an increased efforts in the state's revenue base.
In Ogun, Governor Daniel said education got the lion share to enable the state properly fund the four newly established polytechnics and also bring to reality the establishment of four model secondary schools which will be sited in each of the four divisions of the state and also ensure that the gains already recorded in the sector in the last two years are sustained.
Other highlights include the allocation of N2.36billion Naira to improvement of water supply throughout the state; health care delivery got N2.32billion, housing N1.54billion, environment and ecological management N1, 225billion, agriculture N1.161billion while road construction/rehabilitation and sports development got N6, 191 billion and N926million respectively.
The sectoral analysis of what Governor Daniel envisaged to be a balanced budget, since the state also expects revenue of N48. 58 Billion, indicate that the economic sector got 36.2%, Social sector 37.3%, Environment and Regional Planning 5.7%, General Administration 8.7% while 12.1% of the N48.58billion budget will be spent on Consolidated Revenue Fund Charge.
Governor Daniel said Agriculture would continue to receive priority in order for it to serve as "the bedrock for gainful employment for the young and old". The Governor said emphasis would be placed on value added stages of processing and storage. Obviously aware of the expanding population of the state capital and other big cities, the administration will construct 48 new water supply schemes in different parts of the state. A provision of N568million has been earmarked for the water schemes and the provision of 4 deep wells in each of the 236 wards of the state.