BENIN CITY: Edo State Governor Mr. Godwin Obaseki has signed the 2017 budget revised to 127 billion naira from its previous 150.6 billion into law.
The governor said he feels a sense of accomplishment in signing the revised budget into law because with ten months into the fiscal year, a lot has been achieved in infrastructural development of the state.
Explaining reason behind revision of the budget, Governor Obaseki emphasized it was to ensure transparency and credibility while being realistic as a government.
“It has been a difficult year especially as revenue has not met expectation but this government is doing everything to provide the best service and fulfill its electioneering promises made to the people of Edo State.
“We also created additional ministries such as Ministry of Science and Technology and did not want to veer expenditures from one sub head to another, rather we believed in doing things properly”.
Speaking further, Obaseki said the revised budget also become necessary because the state was not able to obtain the World Bank budget support approved because of the state of the Federal revenue and account.
“World bank has approved 225 million dollars budget support to Edo State. We were not able to draw a balance 75 million dollars which we anticipated will come in the course of this financial year and that was taken into account in our budgeting”.
Earlier, the speaker Alhaji Kabiru Adjoto described the revised budget as the best thing any government could do for its people as it was practical, transparent and realistic.
Alhaji Adjoto explained the reduction was both in capital and recurrent expenditure with more sacrifices in recurrent.
“Government is keen on embarking on a lot of capital projects; in fact, government has notified the House of Assembly they have advertized over 50 roads across the three senatorial districts. We are aware that very soon, the contracts will be awarded.
“The bulk of the money is in the Ministry of Infrastructure as about 15 billion naira. So capital expenditures did not suffer major reduction because projects are ongoing.”
The speaker urged other states to take a lesson from Edo in being prudent as it was the first time it was happening in Nigeria. Rather than supplementary budget, there was reduction to match prevailing circumstances.
