Lagos to spend N659b on personnel, overhead in 2023

• Targets N76b monthly IGR, N350b loan

Lagos State Government has revealed that spending on personnel and overhead will gulp N659 billion of the N1.76 trillion budget for 2023, while N88.8 billion will be spent on debt servicing.

The Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Sam Egube, stated this, yesterday, at a briefing on the 2023 budget.

According to Egube, personnel and overhead costs as well as debt charges, which constitute the recurrent expenditure, amounts to 42 per cent of the entire budget, with capital expenditure taking 58 per cent.

Of the N913b expected Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), the commissioner said the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) is expected to contribute N682.9 billion (65 per cent), while N241.8 billion (23 per cent) is expected to be generated by other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.

“We shall achieve this by deepening the revenue and increasing the tax net through the deployment of technology, economic intelligence, data gathering, collaboration and analytical tools among other initiatives.

“We believe that there are huge revenue generating opportunities in the real estate, transportation and trade sectors. Through active management of our assets, we will organise ourselves better to harvest more appropriate taxes and income from our capital investments and human capital development,” the commissioner stated.
He, however, revealed that the state was able to generate 69 per cent of its 2022 IGR target of N980.654 billion. This implies that the state generated N676 billion as IGR in 2022.

Egube said the N350.411 billion deficit is projected to be funded by a combination of internal, external loans and bond issuance.

He added that the deficit funding sources include external loan of N14.958 billion, internal loans of N235.45 billion and bond issuance of N100 billion.

The Guardian gathered that about 27.3 per cent of the budget (N482.86 billion) would be expended on infrastructure, and that the government is committed to ensuring that the citizens feel the dividend of investments in Integrated Transport Infrastructure.

The commissioner listed some of the infrastructure captured in the budget as the second phase of the Blue Line from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko; completion of eight stadia across the five Ibile divisions for youth development, engagement and community sports; continuous construction and rehabilitation of schools to significantly improve access to quality education; completion of the 130-bed New Massey Hospital that will be the largest specialist children hospital in Africa.

Other projects he listed that would be completed this year include the 280-bed General Hospital in Ojo Local Council; the Mental Health Facility in Ketu-Ereyun in Epe Local Council; Opebi Link Bridge and the rehabilitation/upgrading of Phase II Eti-Osa/Lekki/Epe Expressway Project from Eleko T-Junction to Abraham Adesanya among others.

Egube also revealed that the state government allocated 13 per cent of the budget for the provision of affordable and world-class education, healthcare and social services for its teeming populace to make the system accessible and affordable.