Lagos Assembly passes N812.9b 2017 budget

The Lagos House of Assembly yesterday passed the state’s 2017 budget of N812.9 billion.As stated in the document, N305.1 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure and N507.8 billion for capital projects. There was no adjustment to these figures as presented by the executive, though the House did a realignment of allocations to some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

While the House increased the expected revenue from the Ministry of Education from N525 million to N650 million, that of the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency was reduced from N6.5 billion to N5.8 billion.

The Assembly directed the ministries of Economic Planning and Budget, Finance and State Treasury office to release funds to some agencies for accreditation purposes.

These agencies were Lagos State University, Dentistry Department of the Lagos University College of Medicine, School of Nursing, Lagos State Polytechnic, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education and Michael Otedola College of Primary Education.

The legislators further said the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) should be allowed to retain between five and 10 per cent of revenue it generated in line with Section 13 (a) of the State Revenue Administration Law.

In December last year, the House asked its standing committees to invite all ministries, departments and agencies to defend their budgets. The approval yesterday followed the adoption of the report and recommendations by the House Committee on Budget and Economic Planning presented by the Chairman, Rotimi Olowo.

Olowo said there was the need for the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget to do a review of the 2015-2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) of MDAs before the allocation for the 2018 budget estimate.