Osun Assembly passes N146.6bn budget

Osun State House of Assembly on Monday passed the 2017 Appropriation Bill of N146,632,746,980.

The passage of the budget followed a motion by the chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Kamil Oyedele after the report of the committee on the consideration of the budget was considered and adopted.

The budget, as approved has recurrent expenditure of N76,315,496,240, while capital expenditure is N70,317,250,740.

The Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, had on December 21, 2016 presented a budget of N138.2 billion before the parliament for consideration. The budget was jacked up by the parliament in the course of its consideration.

Explaining the reason for the delay in the passage of the budget, the Speaker, Osun State House of Assembly, Hon. Najeem Salaam said, it was delayed due to the method adopted by the parliament, called Executive Budget Session to further look deeper into the budget and make it more realistic.

He said, it was part of the strategy of the legislature to scrutinize the budget agency by agency to ensure that they generate enough revenue for the implementation of the budget.

According to him, after assent to the budget by the governor, the executive can swing into action and start the implementation of the budget in line with its contents and expectations of the people of the state.

The speaker said that the parliament would follow the implementation of the budget and monitor it to the letter to ensure that the purpose of delaying it is well served.