By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Ogun State Governor, Mr Ibikunle Amosun, has refuted claims that the state government plans to spend close to N1 billion for the conduct of the forthcoming local government election in the state on October 8, 2016.
Mr Amosun said reports quoting the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission (OGSIEC) claiming it will spend close to the above amount for the exercise were totally false without any “iota of truth.”
“The N927 million that is being bandied around is the annual budgetary request of OGSIEC and not money that they have been allocated by the state government,” he said in a statement issued by his media aide, Mr Adejuwon Soyinka.
Speaking further, the Governor said, “This budgetary request was not even about the local government election but rather meant to cover all sorts of expenses of OGSIEC, including their request to construct a new office, buy official cars, buy new ballot boxes and a host of other capital projects.”
He said, “These are capital projects that they have indicated interest in accomplishing this year. However, we have not given them money for any of those things because the state government cannot afford such cost for now.”
“In fact, for instance, rather than build a new office as they have projected in that estimate, we have provided them a befitting office. So in all, I don’t think they have received more than N50m so far,” he stated.
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