Oyo Assembly reduces state’s budget by N39b, passes it into law

TRACKING___The Oyo State House of Assembly yesterday reviewed downward the 2020 budget from N213,788,033,002.97 to N174,087,453,241.46.

The budget had earlier passed into law on December 19, 2019.

Governor Seyi Makinde had in a letter read at plenary on July 15, 2020, sought the review of the budget in acknowledgement of paucity of funds occasioned by COVID-19 threatening 100 per cent budget performance.

According to a report presented at the plenary by Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Finance and Appropriation, Akeem Mustapha, N108,905,099,631.46 is now for recurrent expenditure while N65,182,353,610 is for capital expenditure.

Mustapha had noted that a review of the budget performance of activities of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) from January to July showed a budget performance of between 20 and 30 per cent.

To achieve a good budget performance, the committee pointed to the existence of leakages in the collection of taxes and the need to effectively capture the informal sector.

The Assembly, therefore, urged the state’s Board of Internal Revenue and other revenue-generating MDAs to automate tax collection in the state to block leakages, lamenting that most MDAs performed below average in their revenue performance.

Besides, it asked the state government to give requisite finances and logistic support to MDAs and revenue-generating agencies to enable them to perform optimally.