Press Releases

Y2011 Budget: Fashola Presents N445.180 Billion To Assembly
• "Job creation, poverty alleviation, wealth creation, goals of Budget", he says

Dec 14, 2010 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Tuesday presented for approval from the State's House of Assembly a Budget Estimate of N445.180 billion for Year 2011 pledging that the delivery of dividends of democracy would remain the cornerstone of his administration in the coming year.

The amount which, in keeping with the character of previous Budgets, still favours Capital over Recurrent Expenditure, represents an 8.2 percent increase over the revised Budget Estimate for 2010.

As has been the tradition of the present administration since inception, the proposed Capital Expenditure took the lion share posting a total of N248.471 billion over proposed Recurrent Expenditure which stood at N196.709.

However, the Capital to Recurrent Expenditure ratio was slightly revised from 60:40 in 2010 to 54:44 in 2011 to, according to Governor Fashola, accommodate "the significant growth in our Personnel Cost as our response to the demand of our workers for improved welfare and remuneration conditions" as well as "recurrent costs of maintaining and staffing the various infrastructure projects we have embarked upon over the years that are now being put to use".

Notably, Core Capital projects took the bulk of the Capital Expenditure with a giant allocation of N220.016 billion followed by Capital Development with N14.442 billion, Special Expenditure with N5 billion, Counterpart Funding N4.619 billion, Grants N4.194 billion while Risk Retention Fund brings up the rear with 0.200 billion.

Total Overhead Costs of the Budget stood at N128.480 with overhead cost taking N69.809 billion followed by Subvention with N24,430 billion, Dedication Account with N22.191 billion, Debt Charges (Internal) N6.958 billion, Debt Charge (Bond) N3.992 billion, Debt Charge (External) N1.050 billion and Staff Housing Fund N0.050 billion.

Economic Affairs took the bulk of the Budget's Sectoral Allocations with N142.040 billion or 31 percent, followed by General Public Service with N112.608 billion or 25.3 percent, Education N61.713 billion or 13.9 percent, Health with N39.888 billion or 9 percent, Environmental Protection N36.390 billion or 8.2 percent, Housing and Community Amenities N26.761 billion or 6.0 percent, Recreation, Culture and Religion N6.880 billion or 1.5 percent and Social Protection N6.137 billion or 1.4 percent.

Capital Receipts for the year's Budget, according to the Estimate, is put at N19.261 billion and is made up of Grants N4.194 billion, Investment Income N0.275 billion and Other Capital Receipts amounting to N14.792 billion while deficit financing requirement proposed for the year is N73. 599 billion which represents 1.77 percent of the State's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to Governor Fashola, "the focus of the 2011 Budget will remain, but not limited to, the key sectors of the economy including Law and Order, Road and Transportation, Environment, Health, Education, Water, Rural Development and Agriculture", adding that the Budget would seek to promote greater cooperation with the Local Governments and the Federal Government, especially on road rehabilitation and power sector reform as well as entrenchment of Public Private Partnership (PPP) as alternative development strategy for Lagos infrastructure.

"The Y2011 Budget will be used to farther the goals of job creation, poverty eradication and wealth creation by ensuring that at least two-thirds of the total Capital Expenditure funds are directed to the Government's priority areas", the Governor said, adding that his administration would continue to pursue policies and programmes that would solve the problems of youth unemployment "and give these critical and important stakeholders of our society the best opportunities to realize their potentials".

Governor Fashola also promised to improve upon the fiscal discipline in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government while ensuring the maintenance of sustained, accelerated and broad-based economic growth "with emphasis on increasing investment and strengthening of the rural economy".

Noting that the Budget was prepared within the Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) covering from 2011 to 2013, Governor Fashola, who said the size of the Budget is limited "by our available resources and not our needs", declared, "We have come to terms with the increasing pressure on our staff for better service and the need for increased investment in automation through the use of technology and our Government will be actively pursuing ways and means to improve the e-governance capacity in order to respond to growing demand for service".

He said the State Government proposes to establish new Police Area Commands in 2011 in order to strengthen the capacity of the Nigeria Police Force to enforce Law and Order adding that the several on-going Court Projects as well as the Lagos Arbitration Centre would be completed in 2011.

On Roads and Transportation, Governor Fashola said over 100 roads currently under construction would be completed next year while a lot more attention would be paid to rehabilitation, repairs and maintenance of inner road networks adding, "Our commitment to expand water transportation will see the expansion of the water transport routes beyond Ikorodu-Ebute-Ero, Lekki to Victoria Island, Oworonsoki to Ikoyi to Mile 2 to Marina and Ikorodu to Marina with the expected completion of all on-going major jetty projects".

Other core sectors of concern, according to the Governor, include Education where the Government intends to give additional supports to the State's University and other tertiary institutions in the State, intensify its school rehabilitation programme and where Government continues to be encouraged by the impact of all its policies in that sector and the Health sector Government plans to complete the LASUTH Annex at Gbagada, the on-going Maternal and Childcare Centres (MCCs) and rehabilitation of hospitals among others.

They also include Housing where Government proposes to commence the Affordable Housing Mortgage Finance Scheme among other projects in that sector next year, Rural Development under which Government intends to continue the provision of a range of infrastructure in selected rural communities, Water where Government will focus on expansion/rehabilitation of reticulation networks and Agriculture where such initiatives like the Rice-to-Jobs, Agric Youth Empowerment Scheme (Agric-YES) and Livestock Fish Farm settlements will continue to receive attention.

Governor Fashola said his administration's model of developing skill acquisition centres, with linkage to the State's Micro-Finance initiative has proved very successful in making many youths in the State self-reliant adding "In our bid to ensure that our children receive good education, participate in sports and also get financial reward doing that, we have also inaugurated a football competition for our young people still in schools known as the Lagos Junior League".

On staff welfare, Governor Fashola said Government has set up a State Commission to review wages and salaries as a solution to the labour agitations arising from the Federal Government review of its own staff's salaries adding, "We are proposing a minimum of 20 percent and a maximum of 25 percent, the latter for essential services as wage increase across board to be implemented upon approval of the budget".

Reviewing the performance of the 2010 Budget, Governor Fashola who went down memory lane to give accounts of projects commissioned in the last three hundred days after the 2010 Budget was presented, expressed joy that the over all performance of the 2010 Budget was impressive.

He declared, "Our administration, in the last three years, opted by choice for programmes and projects with the greatest impact on the lives of the people of Lagos State. We have sought to build on the worthy legacy of my predecessor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We have expanded the capacity of our human resources, reformed the machinery and processes of governance and achieved significant progress in our quest to renew/develop the infrastructure of the State. We have created a much safer atmosphere for our people to live, work and play".

Promising an improvement on the performance of this year's budget so far before the end of the last quarter, Governor Fashola further asserted, "I would like to observe, however, that no other government in Nigeria is currently posting better budgetary performance than Lagos State".

Pledging to continue to canvass for compensatory share of the nation's resources for Lagos State in view of its position as the economic hub of the country, Governor Fashola declared that the delivery of the future for both the State and the country depends on a stable political climate which, according to him, will be engendered by the full participation of all eligible voters in a free and fair election next year.

In his remarks later, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, RT. Hon Adeyemi Ikuforiji, thanked the Governor for the budget presentation and his service to the people while also imploring him to sustain his commitment to a faithful implementation of the budgets with the 2011 budget.

He said the House is aware of the urgency required to key programmes in the budget particularly in the areas of rehabilitation of dilapidated roads, need for improvement in current health standard in the State and the need to improve on the judicial infrastructure as well as welfare and condition of service of the judiciary.

"Once again, we assure that timely treatment to the budget would be undertaken in visible areas of urgent attention such as roads, infrastructure and health among others. Lagos does not deserve anything less than the utmost even though we will not shy away from asking questions and also insist on accountability and lay good foundation for the current one where necessary", he added.

Ikuforiji urged the Governor to address the immediate and remote causes of the kind of protracted strikes that enveloped the health sector and tertiary institutions in the State so that such would be a thing of the past.

Prominent among those who witnessed the budget presentation ceremony were the Deputy Governor, Princess Sarah Adebisi Sosan, the Secretary to the State Government, Princess Adenrele Adeniran-Ogunsanya, Head of Service, Prince Adesegun Ogunlewe, other members of the State Executive Council, Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria Lagos State Chapter, Chief Henry Ajomale and business mogul, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas among other dignitaries.