Lagos Assembly Fails To Pass Fashola’s N489.7 Billion Budget, Blames 10 MDAs

Posted by African Examiner Ayo Balogun, Featured, Latest Headlines, News Monday, December 30th, 2013

Ayo Balogun, Lagos

Against all expectations, the Lagos State House of Assembly has failed to pass the N489.7 billion presented to it by Governor Babatunde Fashola for the 2014 fiscal year.

Lagos-House-Assembly

The governor presented the budget proposal to the House in October, but the House on Monday failed to pass the budget before the New Year.

This is unlike in 2012 when the Assembly passed the budget before going on recess for the New Year.

The Assembly blamed 10 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for the delay in passing the budget as they refused to submit to the House the necessary documents to facilitate the passage of the appropriation bill.

The concerned MDAs are Eko Project, Lagos State Building Control Agency (LABCA), Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Works and Infrastructure, Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA), Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget and Ministry of Transportation.

Others are the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project, LMDGP, Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and Lottery Board.

The House has therefore ordered those MDAs to forward the document by 2 January, 2014 to the Appropriation Committee of the House.

On the floor of the House on Monday, a lawmaker, representing Badagry 11 Constituency, Hon. Suru Avoseh called the attention of his colleagues to report forwarded to him as inconclusive.

Chairman, House Committee on Budget and Appropriation, Mudashiru Obasa lamented that 10 MDAs had not supplied the necessary documents that would lead to further deliberation on the report.

The committee chairman said the affected MDAs appeared before the House and were asked to present the documents, but that up till the sitting period, the committee had not received any of the documents, saying that he had laid the report hoping that before the presentation, the documents would get to the House, adding that the committee had written to the affected government institutions, yet there had been no favourable response.

The Chief Whip, Abdulrazaq Balogun observed that the MDAs deliberately refused to supply the necessary report and that they deserved to be compelled in doing so while Ipoola Omisore, Ifako-Ijaiye II said “it is the desire of the House to pass the appropriation bill before the end of the year. It is not right for any MDA to hold us back.”

Speaker of the House, Adeyemi Ikuforiji said that the House would have proceeded on recess after passing the bill but added that this was no longer possible as member must wait for the bill to be passed before embarking on such recess.