Lagos Assembly Passes N873.5bn 2019 Appropriation Bill
The Lagos State House of Assembly on Monday at last passed the contentious year 2019 state budget during its plenary session barely three months after the Lagos State Governor Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode presented the budget to the Assembly for consideration.
The total budget size passed by the Assembly is N873.532b which is a difference of about N21.215b from the N852.317b originally presented to the Assembly by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode in February.
Of this amount capital expenditure stands at N479.691b while recurrent expenditure is N393.841b
Although the House had said it was setting aside another day for debate of the report of the Appropriation committee because of its volume and technicality when the report was presented last week Friday, it was surprising that it did not take the House up to 10 minutes to debate and make few corrections before adopting the report, having gone through the third reading and passing the budget.
The Chief Whip Hon. Rotimi Abiru commended the committee for its report especially the provision that office of the Accountant-General should be strengthened for better performance.
He also suggested that some monies that the committee recommended to be dropped which are meant for continuation of some infrastructure projects should instead be paid into a specialised account.
Former Appropriation committee, Hon. Rotimi Olowo, supported Abiru on the specialised account suggestion and subsequently moved the motion for the adoption of the report as amended as a resolution of the House, he was seconded by Hon. Adefunmilayo Tejuoso.
When the speaker, Hon. Mudashiru Obasa put it to vote the lawmakers voted for adoption of the report.
The speaker subsequently put the allocation sectorally to vote before the third reading was taken and budget passed.
Obasa then directed the Clerk of the House, Azeez Sanni to send a clean copy of the passed Appropriation law to the governor for signature.
It would be recalled that it has been a tortuous journey for the 2019 Lagos budget giving room for controversies, insinuations, accusations and counter accusations in several quarters which resulted in its passage being delayed till April.
Now that the budget is passed it is hoped that Governor Ambode may proceed sign it into law this week for governmental activities which had since been grounded in the state.