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Eighty-three days after its presentation by the state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, the Lagos State House of Assembly has passed the state’s 2019 budget.
The budget passed was however N21.2billion higher than what the governor originally presented for passage.
Ambode had presented a total budget of N852,316,936,483 to the house, explaining that there was a reduction in the projected revenue of the state, which affected the implementation of the 2018 budget estimates. The 2018 budget was N1.04 trillion.
On Monday, the lawmakers announced the passage of the budget, saying that the new budget stands at N873,532,460,725, which was N21,215,524,242 more than what was earlier presented.
The budget presented by Ambode has ₦389.560bn as recurrent expenditure, while capital expenditure was put at ₦462.757bn, which represented Capital/Recurrent Ratio of 54:46.
But the one passed by the house has N393,841,387,020 for recurrent expenditure and N479,691,073,705 for capital expenditure.
Ambode had said the projected total revenue for 2019 is ₦775.231bn, of which ₦606.291billion is expected to be generated internally and ₦168.940billion is expected from Federal Transfers, while a total of ₦77.086billion will be sourced through deficit financing within the medium term expenditure framework.
Announcing the passage, Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mudasiru Obasa said: “That a bill for a law to authorise the issue and appropriation of N393,841,387,020 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for recurrent expenditure and N479,691,073,705 from Development Fund for capital expenditure thereby totalling a budget size of N873,532,460,725 for the Year ending 31st December 2019 be passed into law.”