Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, this evening signed into law the 2020 Budget.
He signed the N187 billion budget in his Alagbaka office in Akure the state capital shortly after the state’s House of Assembly passed the fiscal document titled “Budget of Growth.”
It is made up of N82.7 billion recurrent expenditure representing 44.1 percent of the total budget and N80.47 billion capital vote or 42.7 percent of the total package.
It gives topmost priorities to Education, Infrastructure and Road Construction.
Akeredolu appreciated the legislators for ensuring quick passage of the bill and demanded improved IGR to complement the dwindling revenue from the federation account.
While presenting the budget to the Governor, the commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Pastor Emmanuel Igbasan said that
“Education has the largest percentage of the budget provision, followed by infrastructure.
The breakdown shows that N10.508 billion, representing 5.6% is for Debt Servicing; N14,180 billion representing 7.6 % as Statutory Transfers to Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC), Ondo State Internal Revenue Service (ODIRS) and 10% share of Independent Revenue to Joint Account and Allocation Committee (JAAC) of Local Governments in the State.
Akeredolu explained that the policy directions of the budget are largely the products of the inputs garnered during Town Hall meetings with various stakeholders across the State and the 5-point development agenda (the Blueprint to Progress) of his administration.
The Governor, who identified unavailability and inadequacy of required funds as one of the key challenges to budget implementation, said his administration has designed many ingenious and innocuous ways of bringing in more prospective payers into the tax net.
He said: ”One of the key challenges to budget implementation is unavailability and inadequacy of required funds. This is as a result of the recurring dwindling Ondo State’s share of the Federation Account. This is occasioned by a fall in oil revenue which incidentally, and regrettably too, provides over 80% of the country’s revenue receipts.
“The Independent Revenue, even though has increased substantially since the inception of our administration, has not grown to the level of delivering the State from depending on Federal Transfers.”
The Governor called on the people of the State, both in the public and private sectors, Donor Partners, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and others to join hands with the Government in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of this budget in order to achieve the desired economic growth that would engender human capital development and emancipation of the people.
Akeredolu thanked members of the state House of Assembly, led by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Bamidele Oloyelogun for the detailed scrutiny and passage of the budget in record time.
In his speech, the speaker noted that the budget had witnessed upward review to mend some roads in rural area.
