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Delta assembly gets N11b amendment bill on budget

By Owen Akenzuwa, Asaba
08 November 2016   |   1:10 am
A motion for the realignment of the 2016 approved budget was last week presented during plenary of the Delta State House of Assembly. The amendment sought was contained in a letter from Governor Ifeanyi Okowa...
Delta state Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa

Delta state Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa

A motion for the realignment of the 2016 approved budget was last week presented during plenary of the Delta State House of Assembly. The amendment sought was contained in a letter from Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to the House read by the Speaker, Monday Igbuya.

The bill, essentially an amendment, seeks to reorder the sum of N2.12 billion from specific sub-heads of the recurrent expenditure and the sum of N9.945 billion from specific sub-heads of the capital expenditure of the Delta Appropriation Law, 2016, to augment some other specific sub-heads of the over-head cost, consolidated revenue fund charges and capital expenditure.

According to the schedule, a total of N11.950 billion is being proposed for realignment in the 2016 budget.In effect, the amended recurrent expenditure will be N155.777 billion. The amended capital expenditure will be N112.401 billion while the budget size remains N268.179 billion.

The proposed realignment will not increase the 2016 approved budget as both additions and subtractions in the schedule equate.In another development, Governor Okowa has reiterated that the Ministry of Information is the official organ for the dissemination of government views and statements.

Reacting to contradictory statements attributed to government officials, he said: “The Ministry of Information is the officially designated organ of managing and disseminating government information; it is supposed to be the clearing house for all government information.”

Okowa at the 46th meeting of the National Council on Information held in Asaba, bemoaned the situation where government officials dish out contradictory statements. “We have seen situations where heads of other ministries and political appointees made public pronouncements that contradicted the official government policy leading to confusion in the minds of the public and loss of confidence in government’s information machinery,”he stressed.

Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at the meeting said, “information managers have to be at the forefront of reshaping our country to the time-tested values of old.”

No fewer than 29 commissioners and their permanent secretaries, including key functionaries in the information sector in the country, attended the three-day meeting.

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