Ondo Assembly passes N96b 2024 supplementary budget

• As Ogun scores self high on implementation

Ondo State House of Assembly has passed a N96 billion 2024 supplementary budget. Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State recently forwarded to the lawmakers a bill for a supplementary appropriation increasing the initial N395 billion 2024  budget to N487 billion.
  
Aiyedatiwa had anchored his request for a supplementary budget on the effects of petrol subsidy removal and the need to enable the implementation of the N73,000 minimum wage recently announced for the state’s workforce.
  
The House of Assembly, in its discretion, increased the governor’s proposal to N492 billion, amounting to an increase of N96 billion.  Speaking after submitting the report of the House’s Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Oluwole Ogunmolasuyi (Owo 1/APC), said there was a need for additional funds for the government’s goals.
  
Ogunmolasuyi, the House majority leader and chairman of the committee, stated that funds allocated to some government ministries, departments and agencies had been exhausted because of inflationary pressure on the signed 2024 budget.  He added that the revised budget would give a clear expression for rapid development in the state.

MEANWHILE, the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has said that no part of Ogun State has been left out of the developmental projects of his administration in the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the 2025 budget.
  
According to him, projects are evenly distributed to the three senatorial districts under the 2024 budget.  Abiodun made this known during a town hall meeting on the 2025-2027 MTEF and 2025 budget, held at the Bisi Rodipe Event Centre, Ijebu-Ode.
  
Abiodun, who lauded all stakeholders for their inputs during consultations towards putting together the 2024 budget, said his administration had approved the reconstruction of some major roads in the Ogun East Senatorial District.
  
The roads, according to the governor, are Imoro-Imegun-Opopo road, Igbeba-Eid praying ground to Prison road, Imoru road in Ijebu-Ode and the Odelewu-Ladeshi-Ishiwo road.
  
Abiodun, who was represented by the Chief Economic Adviser and Commissioner for Finance, Mr Dapo Okubadejo, noted that despite the fiscal pressure on its resources, his administration had also commenced the construction of over 64 kilometres of rural roads across the state.
  
Earlier in his welcome address, the Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr Olaolu Olabimtan, disclosed that 377 inputs were received during the last town hall meetings held in 2023, adding that 90 per cent, which represented 340 inputs, were included in the budget, even as he pledged that the remaining 40 inputs would be included in the 2025 budget and the MTEF.

In their separate remarks, the Gbegande of Ososa, Oba Toye Alatishe, and the Ebumawe of Ago-Iwoye, Oba Abdul-Rasaq Adenugba, commended the administration for sustaining the town hall meeting, which had served as an avenue for the people to make their inputs into the budget. Trade unions, associations, religious bodies, and traditional rulers, among others, all made their inputs in the 2025 budget.