Oyo APC carpets Makinde over N679b 2025 budget, says it is fiscal fraud
• Yuletide: Oyo, Ogun govts reassure motorists of adequate security along Lagos-Ibadan expressway
Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described Governor Seyi Makinde’s N679b budget proposal for 2025 as another fictitious document prepared to further enrich a few individuals within the corridors of power.
The party stated that the proposed 2025 budget is not different from the previous ones the governor has been presenting and implementing since 2019 when he assumed office.
In a statement by the state’s Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, the opposition party said the appropriation document was far from being a Budget of Economic Stabilisation, which the governor tagged it.
The statement reads: “The orchestrated presentation was just a ceremony aimed at fulfilling all righteousness as Governor Makinde did not carry any of the relevant stakeholders along in its preparation while he would not make use of the Appropriation Bill upon its passage by the lawmakers.
“As far as Oyo APC is concerned, the claim by Governor Makinde that the 2025 Budget Proposal had the input of the people of the state is false, even as we challenge him to come out clean on the specific projects which would gulp the 51 per cent of the total N679 billion. Also, we have expected him (Makinde) to quote the exact period during which workers should expect the commencement of the payment of the N80,000 minimum wage which he announced recently as well as the monthly total of the state wage bill to justify the amount quoted as recurrent expenditure in the 2025 budget.
“Governor Makinde claimed 70 per cent successful implementation of the N515 billion Budget for 2024 but we do not know the parameters he used to score himself. In the health sector of the state, residents live under the fear of Lassa fever, cholera, and smallpox among others while the personnel in our understaffed public hospitals groan on account of the poor condition of service. But for the World Bank which bankrolls Ibadan Urban Flood Management Projects, the whole of the state capital (Ibadan) would have been washed away by flood and erosion.”
MEANWHILE, ahead of the Yuletide, the Joint Technical Committee on Security for Oyo and Ogun States, yesterday, re-assured residents and motorists that adequate security strategies have been put in place to ensure the safety of lives and property during the season, particularly border areas and highways of both states.
The committee gave the assurance during a special joint security meeting organised to strengthen safety modalities for both states. The Oyo and Ogun State Joint Technical Working Committee on Security, comprising Heads of Security agencies and Security Advisers to the governors of the two states, was convened to discuss the security architecture within the border areas of the states.
The main aim of the meeting was to evaluate the security network along the Lagos Ibadan expressway and other border roads and to further strengthen other areas where security lapses were noticed.
Briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting, the Special Adviser on Security Matters to the Oyo governor, Fatai Owoseni, and the Special Adviser to the Ogun governor on Security Matters, Olusola Subaru, said that based on the evaluation of the committee, criminal activities had drastically reduced along Lagos-Ibadan expressway, adding that the security agencies in the two states are working round the clock to maintain relative peace.
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