For the second year running, the Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, has failed to personally present the state budget before the House of Assembly.
A budget of 138.2 billion naira was formally placed before the lawmakers for perusal and approval by the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Segun Olorunsogo, at the Osun State House of Assembly in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria.
The 2017 budget, tagged: “Budget of Recovery”, is over three billion naira less than the 2016 budget of over 141 billion naira.
Governor Aregbesola, however, sent a letter to the House announcing that the budget would have a capital and recurrent expenditure of 62 billion naira and 75.8 billion naira respectively.
He said that the state expects to fund the budget through recurrent revenue of 105 billion naira and capital receipts of 33 billion naira in the 2017 fiscal year.
On the implementation of the 2016 budget, the Governor admitted the poor implementation of past budgets, blaming it on global oil crisis and national economic gloom.
He said his administration’s failure in public finance management has been revealed through the poor performance of the budget of the outgoing fiscal year.
Although the budget was received by the Speaker of the Assembly, Najeem Salaam, the opposition in the House swiftly reacted to the poor implementation of the outgoing fiscal budget.
A member of the Peoples Democratic Party, Representative Dipo Eluwole, noted that the crisis in the education sector was a significant example of the failure of past budgets in the state.
