Oyo APC faults Makinde’s 2024 budget proposal

The All Progressives Congress in Oyo State, on Monday, described the 2024 budget proposal of Governor Seyi Makinde as defective and unrealistic.

The PUNCH reports that Makinde had, last Tuesday, presented a budget proposal of N434.2bn tagged “Budget of Economic Recovery” to the state House of Assembly.

APC, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, in Ibadan, the state capital, therefore, urged the lawmakers to avoid rushing to pass the bill into law without a thorough job as has been the case since 2020.

Sadare said, “Pundits and economic management experts have had to express worries over the future of the Pacesetter State because the administration of Makinde has done little or nothing to improve the economy and create wealth as being done in some other states across the country.

“To make it worse, an expert recently said that Makinde has reduced the state to ‘Land Grabbing and Okada/Keke economy. Credence was again given to the observation of pundits last week when the governor tabled before the House a proposed budget for 2024 which contained nothing.

“In the document, N434.2billion is quoted as the total budget for the year but N260billion is the total amount of funds expected in revenue leaving over N170billion in deficit. How realistic is this?

“A whopping sum of N21 billion is budgeted for the Office of the Governor without any breakdown of what they intend to do with it in specific term while another N485million would go to Cabinet and Security service.

“The ruins in public facilities, in the state, is feasible in the deplorable condition of all the monumental structures in the Agodi State Secretariat while the Government House has been reduced to an eyesore now harbouring all sort of strange persons. Yet money has been allocated and released for the maintenance of these facilities since 2020 but there is nothing to show for it.”

While commenting on the 20 per cent allocation to education, the party wondered what happened to the previous allocations “because virtually all public schools have suffered neglect while pupils carry chairs and tables to classrooms from home.”

On agriculture, the party wondered what success Oyo has recorded in the areas of agriculture, commerce, job creation and so on in the last four years.

It added, “We rely on the North for beans, tomatoes, peppers, cows, onions, rice etc when we have massive arable land and human resources.”