Osun Defends Budget Underperformance Allegation

Osun State government has described the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC)’s allegation of budget underperformance against it as baseless.

In a statement made available to newsmen in Osogbo yesterday, the commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenments, Oluomo Kolapo Alimi, clarified that the parameters used by the opposition to assess the budget performance were faulty.

According to him, the percentage analysed was based on the entire budget size for the year 2024, whereas, to get the actual performance for the first quarter, the budget needs to be pro-rated.

“In the Office of the Governor, which houses many Agencies of Government like General Services, Bureau of Government House and Protocol, State Security, Sustainable Development Goals, UNDP, Parastatals Monitoring Office, among others, most of the expenditures referred to are one-off and necessary to stabilise the system, thus, the need for payment in the first quarter of the year.

“In other Sectors, for instance, Education, the total budget for 2024 is ₦37,614,185,160, and the first quarter pro-rata is N9,403,546,290.00, out of which the sum of N6,293,762,984.72, was spent, and this account for 66.8 per cent, and not 16 percent as misquoted.

The pro-rata for the first quarter is N11,123,296,062.5; however, a sum of N17,242,506,008.28 was expended, which accounted for 155.2 percent.

“For clarity, the increase in expenditure beyond the pro rata is because more funds needed to be pumped into construction before the rainy season fully begins. This will be normalised before the fourth quarter as fewer resources will be needed as the work progresses throughout the year.

“In the Environment Sector, the total expected expenditure for the year is N2,241,111,860 of which the expenditure for the first quarter was to be N₦560,277,965. The pro-rata performance for the first quarter is N575.2 million, which is 103 percent due to the need to guard against flood through dredging of streams across the state and preservation of forests.’’

He said the first quarter’s performance cannot be used to judge the yearly budget’s performance appropriately since some expenditures cannot be incurred early in the year.