By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The 2017 appropriation bill of Lagos State has been passed into law by the state’s House of Assembly.
The budget was given an approval by the lawmakers on Tuesday.
On November 29, 2016, the state Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, had informed the Assembly that he plans to spend N812.99 billion for the 2017 fiscal year.
On December 1, 2016, after receiving the budget, the Assembly had directed all its standing committees to invite all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to defend their budgets
After carrying out the order, the Assembly, at the resumption of plenary on Tuesday, passed the sum of N305.28 billion as total Recurrent Expenditure and N507.82 billion as the total Capital Expenditure for the Year ending December 31, 2017.
This followed its adoption of the report and recommendations by its Committee on Budget and Economic Planning presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Rotimi Olowo.
Mr Olowo, addressing his colleagues, said that the state was able to achieve 71 percent budget performance in spite of the economic recession in the country.
The lawmaker said that the state would embark on progressive taxation, which would bring more people into the tax net and make the rich pay more.
As parts of the recommendations of the committee, the lawmaker said there was a need to comply with the Appropriation (Amendment) (Re-ordering) Law, 2016 to release funds to relevant MDAs.
The lawmaker added that there was also a need for the Ministry of Economic Planning and budget to carry out budget review of 2015-2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) of MDAs before allocating envelopes for Y2018 proposed budget estimate.
He said that this would guide against duplication of expenditures (Capital and Recurrent) by MDAs.
The House approved a sum of N650 million for education, N350 million for Agriculture, N360 million for LASIEC, while the Capital Expenditure of LASIEC was increased from N2.5 billion to N3 billion to cater for election matters.
Meanwhile, overhead for Security/Emergency Interventions was reduced from N500 million to N400 million and N1 billion was allocated as capital expenditure for the ministry of Special Duties and Inter governmental Relations.
The Assembly approved a sum of N20.43 billion for LAMATA, N2 billion for Ferry Services, N4 billion for maintenance/Repair of roads (Recurrent) while the capital vote head for Road Maintenance rose from N790.10 million to N1.79 billion.
Meanwhile, overhead cost of Lagos State House of Assembly Service Commission was increased from N210 million to N252 million while the capital expenditure.
The Assembly also approved N10 billion for the State Infrastructure Intervention Fund, while it approved N159.55 million for state Electricity Board.
Lagos State Speaker, Mr Mudashiru Obasa, after taking voice vote on each sectoral allocation of the Appropriation Bills and approval given to each, passed the budget.
