COWLSO tasks women on nation building, personal growth

Lagos Assembly slashes Ambode’s N42b budget request

The Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), yesterday charged women to brace up, invest vigorously to increase their incomes and strive to be more successful than their spouses.

They gave the charge at the 17th annual National Women Conference with the theme: She Creates, She Transforms. The participants at the conference maintained that it was important that women are positively aggressive and assertive to contribute to national development, stressing the importance of capacity building that translates to personal and business benefits.

Wife of the Secretary to the State Government, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, who read the communiqué at the conference, said the group advised women to source for funds through grants, equity and debt financing.

“Women entrepreneurs are encouraged to take advantage of the various products available to them from the Bank of Industry (BoI).“Women should be solution providers and purpose-driven rather than looking for immediate financial gains, which gives opportunity to contribute towards improving society.”

Speaking, COWLSO Chairman and Wife of Lagos State Governor, Bolanle Ambode, said it was important for Nigerian women to understand that they are in a unique situation at this point.

“I urge all participants to make the best use of all they have learnt at the conference for their personal benefits. You should also endeavour to pass on the knowledge acquired,” she said.

Responding, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, commended the participants at the conference for successfully undergoing three days of networking and learning.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State House of Assembly yesterday slashed Ambode’s 2017 budget reorder request from N42.028bn to N25.028bn.The key components of the 2017 budget were recurrent expenditure (N300.535) billion while N512.464 billion was allocated to capital expenditure, representing ratio of 63 per cent to 37 per cent.

With the passage, the 2017 budget stands at N494.447bn for capital expenditure while recurrent expenditure is N301.551bn. The difference of N17bn was stepped down.

The request to reorder the Paris Club refund loan of N17bn to address the challenge of transportation in the state was also stepped down, as members were not satisfied with the data provided by the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Acting Chairman, Ad-Hoc Committee on Budget, Rotimi Olowo, stressed that there was the need to pass the review of the budget as requested to address the challenges of transportation, flooding and insecurity.