Gov. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State on Wednesday signed into law the 2019 revised budget of N182.4 billion.
The revised budget is a review of the 2019 Appropriation Act of N285 billion earlier signed in the first quarter of the year by the immediate past governor, Abiola Ajimobi.
With the new budget, N103 billion was slashed from the N285billion, signed into law by Ajimobi.
Speaking after the signing of the budget, Makinde, noted that the 2019 budget signed into law by the immediate past governor was not consistent with the direction the state should go.
“When we came in, we met a budget of N285 billion for the year. We went into the revenue profile and found out that we were getting roughly N5 billion monthly from the Federal Allocation and the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was about N2 billion, making N7 billion roughly every month.
“If I multiply that by 12, that is N84 billion. Immediately, we said there is a hole of N200 billion in the budget. So, we asked questions,’’ the governor said.
He further said that if his administration continued with the old budget as passed by the 8th Assembly, the performance that could be achieved on the budget would be between 25 and 38 per cent.
He said: “The budget performance of the previous years did not go beyond 40 per cent in implementation.
“So, we decided that our target for the year would be at least 70 per cent budget performance.’’
Makinde commended the legislators for cutting short their recess to work on the budget and passed it in record time.
Earlier in his address, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin, noted that the budget passed by the 8th Assembly was over-bloated.
He said that Gov. Makinde had decided to plan for the state according to its resources.
Ogundoyin explained that there was no way they could plan for the state without having the actual revenue well-accounted for and well-appropriated.
“You cannot plan your household on an imaginary budget. If you earn N80,000 but you plan your household on N200,000, there is no way you can properly plan for the household.
“The same thing applies to our state. A budget of N285 billion that was passed by the 8th Assembly was an over-bloated budget.
“There is no way we can assess our performance in terms of budget oversight with such budget,’’ he said.
The Deputy Governor, Rauf Olaniyan; the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs Olubamiwo Adeosun; Head of Service, Mrs Amudat Agboola; all commissioners, political appointees and members of the state assembly attended the ceremony.