Green Party of Nigeria Ogun state chapter, under the leadership of Otunba Abayomi Odunowo aka Yomi Cash has queried the recently presented 2020 budget of the proposed incomes and expenditures of the state government, he stated this while speaking to party leaders recently trying to feel the pulse of the people on the proposed budget.
Remember that the governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun presented the 2020 appropriation budget estimates of N449.97billion naira, tagged “Budget to build our future together” to the Ogun state house of assembly on Tuesday 3rd of December 2019. The budget which according to the government was hinged on five strategic pillars namely
1. Infrastructure,
2. Social Protection and Wellbeing,
3. Education,
4. Youth Empowerment,
5. Agriculture and others.
This was broken down as follows: Social protection and wellbeing N128.067Bn, representing 28%, infrastructure N107.964Bn representing 24% Agriculture N21.634bn representing 5%, youth empowerment accounts for about 7.896% of the budget which is roughly about N35.542Bn, and others N92.804Bn representing about 21% of the budget.
The 2020 Budget according to the governor has a recurrent expenditure of N180.843 representing 40.19% and capital expenditure of N269.132Bn representing 59.81% of the budget which is expected to be financed with a proposed IGR of N254.946Bn, Statutory allocation of N43.431Bn and VAT of N22.031Bn totaling N320.408Bn representing 71.2% percent of the budget.
A capital receipt of N89.706Bn and other receipts put at N39.860Bn representing 19.94% and 8.86% respectively are expected to make up for the deficit between proposed expenditure and income.
The 2020 budget of N449.974Bn was N49.651bn higher than 2019 budget of N40.323bn.
ISSUES
We had to first state all the facts and figures above as presented by the governor on Tuesday at the house of assembly session so that you can easily understand why we asked the questions in the heading above.
First, immediately after the said budget presentation, some citizens and journalist who are interested in knowing full details of the content of the budget paper approached some dignitaries, including members of the state house of assembly present at the presentation, to get a glance at their copy of the budget booklet, but to their utter consternation, none of the people approached had a copy of the budget booklet.
After so much persuasion and enquiries, some members of the state house of assembly who spoke on conditions of anonymity said that none of them is yet to get a copy of the budget book to be able to digest the details of the summary presented on the floor of the house so as to make appropriate contributions to it. And this informed our title caption that if His Excellency Prince Dapo Abiodun didn’t present a budget booklet on Tuesday, then what did he present.
Second issue is the size of the budget and how realistic is it? According to Ogun state ministry of budget, the overall Budget proportionate performance of 2019 Budget of N400.323bn stood at 36.2% as at Octorber 31,2019. If we are not quickly forgetful, we will remember that governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state had to reduce the 2019 budget of N282bn proposed by his predecessor to N182bn as he found the figures quoted by his predecessor bogus and unrealistic. And in his 2020 budget only proposed a meagre N208.8bn in order to match up with the realities at hand.
We might say the dynamics operating in both states are different and this brings us to our third issues with the proposed budget 2020.
The third issue is that of financing the 2020 budget of Ogun state, because according to government data available, Ogun state that was unable to generate up to N75bn IGR in 2019 is expecting to generate N255bn IGR in 2020. And despite the unrealistic IGR, VAT & statutory allocation from Abuja, the budget is still having a deficit of about 28%. The question is how does the state government expects to generate this new IGR without over burdening the already heavy laden people of Ogun state, who are barely surviving.
Fourth is the content of the few summary made available to the people. While the government must be commended for planning to spend more on capital projects than recurrent expenditures, there are key areas such as health that was conspicuously missing from the plan for 2020 except they want us to assume that the money allocated to social protection and wellbeing is referring to security and health.
Fifth is the issue of the mathematics of the budget which didn’t add up and this only suggests that the budget might have been hurriedly put together so as meet the trend, in order for people not to say that they are slow in everything, “they are yet to have a cabinet, they are yet to prepare budget”. Because the error of addition and percentage allocation are too obvious for a proof reader have missed it.
The figures quoted as allocation in paragraph 2 were quoted from the report on the website the state government. And if you cross check, addition of allocated funds equals #386.011bn and not the 449.97 bn quoted.
Sixth is the issue of cabinets members input on what is allocated to their department. Because there are duties prescribed for members of the cabinet by law and who is doing them now as it affects this budget presentation.
While the aim of this open letter is not to compare Ogun to Oyo state or Governor Dapo Abiodun to Governor Seyi Makinde, it is intended to call the attention of those in governance in our dear ogun state to the fact that our citizens are watching with keen interest on how those we freely gave our mandates to intends to remove us from slavery of the past and not plunge us headlong into multi-dimensional levels of poverty by their actions and inactions. While we appreciate the statewide palliative measures being deployed on our roads primary schools and hospitals, we are writing to tell the government not to cure acne while ignoring the leprosy everywhere.
On this note, we expect that rather than unleashing their cyber bulldogs after reading this piece, the government should rather make copies of the budget booklet available to all so that we can as citizens of the state make informed constructive contributions to the matter and get our state moving forward together as the name of the budget suggests.
Thank you in anticipation as we hope to hear positive response from you soonest.
E-signed,
Ayannuga Olugbenga Paul
For: Green Party Of Nigeria
Publicity Secretary
Ogun State.
