Budget Defence: Osun Assembly Will Not Entertain Unnecessary Increament

The State of Osun House of Assembly would ensure thorough consideration of the 2018 budget estimates with a view to preventing unnecessary increase in its size.

The Speaker of the State Assembly, Dr. Najeem Salaam made the remarks in his opening remark on Monday at the commencement of budget defence by agencies and institutions of Government at the State Assembly Complex Osogbo.

He stressed the need for consolidation of the numerous gains of the present administration through effective collaboration by all and sundry as well as optimal implementation of the budget as approved.

According to him, “I wish to state that this Honourable House would be very thorough in the consideration of this year’s budget like before and efforts will be made to prevent unnecessary increase in the size of the budget.

“Any expenditure that is not in tandem with the economic realities on ground will not be entertained”, he added.

He advised Ministries, Departments and all Agencies of Government and tertiary institutions particularly to improve on their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) drive.

Salaam also implored the MDAs to look inwards by blocking all revenue leakages within their jurisdictions to save the government from losing resources unnecessarily.

He said, “All tertiary institutions in the state are hereby enjoined to ensure full automation of their revenue collections before the end of the first quarter of this year”.

He urged all stakeholders in the revenue generation exercise to accord it the much needed attention so as to achieve the desired goals in the end.

The speaker noted that audit query had been issued on some agencies by the auditing office saying the House of Assembly would prepare a timetable for appearance of those concerned, so as to be able to defend themselves in line with the present nature of the House of Assembly.

He therefore, charged the Joint House Committee on Budget consideration to be critical of the estimate because the House needs to be sincere in their dealings throughout the Budget defence exercise.

Meanwhile, in his remarks, the chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Hon. Kamil Oyedele charged all the Ministries, Agencies and Government parastatals to be committed to the exercise for the success of Budget implementation.

According to him, “Any ministries or agencies that fails to submit its work plan before coming for appearance in the House, its budget would not be approved”.

However, some of the agencies of government that have appeared before the house includes the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB), which defended the sum of N2,626,808,750 allotted to it; Osun State College of Education Ilesa N1,741,580,940 and Osun State College of Education Ila-Orangun N1,455,284,760, while the Osun State Polytechnic  Iree also defended its budget estimate of N2,468,237.275 before the parliament.