Lagos 2011 Budget Records 77% Performance

The 2011 Budget of Lagos State recorded a cumulative year performance of 77 percent with a fourth quarter performance of over 120 percent.

Governor Fashola who disclosed this in an interview with State House Correspondents at Lagos House, Ikeja after the Budget performance appraisal session, added that the performance fell a little shorter than the target of 90 percent because 2011 was an election year when the first quarter performance was 52 percent.

He explained that the thrust of the 2011 Budget was to ensure economic growth and poverty eradication while the strategy was infrastructure renewal as a key to driving economic growth and poverty eradication.

“It was simply that we will finish many of the on-going projects as much as possible while starting very few critical new projects. That is the background with which we will measure the performance of the budget,” he stated.

The governor stated that although the performance fell short of the 90 percent government’s expectation of a minimum of 90 percent, it tells Lagosians that the administration ranked up its efforts from January when it had 52 percent performance to close the year at 77 percent.

He added that in terms of the impact of the budget, it could be noticed in terms of some of the things which the administration has embarked upon in the last four to six weeks where completed projects were being handed over, stressing that there was a need to do more.

“We have been going around and you have come with me in the area of agriculture, for example, you saw a completed rice mill in Imota, you also saw the irrigation project that is nearing completion in Itoga, Badagry. In the area of education, you have been with me in schools that we have completed and handed over. In the healthcare sector, you have also seen the Maternal Care Centres (MCC) that we handed over. In terms of roads, we have been to Akerele just as we were in Mushin together,” Governor Fashoal informed.

Governor Fashola stated that the state’s budget was connecting to the realities that the people could see on the ground, adding that in the area of security which is a critical infrastructure, there have been provisions of Armoured Personnel Carriers((APC), motorbikes, vehicles and they haves impacted in safeguarding the people.

The Lagos State helmsman reiterated that the budget responded to the needs of the people and expressed happiness that it is not a vacuous budget that tells about growth without substance.

He regretted that a very critical week had been lost to fuel subsidy protest of last week because immediately after signing the budget, government was about going for tender with everybody ready to go until the “week of harmattan of discontent.”

Governor Fashola said what needed to be done now was restrategizing and explained that government was already looking at its pricing indices because it is dangerous now to go to procurement only to come and deal with variation later in the year.

He informed that the Ministry of Works has already been mandated to do a quick price survey and index survey and come back to the government to let it know how valid and sustainable the prices with which it planned are.

He added: “It is important to emphasise as we debate that the variables has been the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit(PMS) but we know also that it has cascaded into some price indexes across other sectors but many of them are probably difficult to justify”.

Governor Fashola used the opportunity to appeal to Lagosians not to respond to a bandwagon price change wherever they have not suffered any price change, saying: “We must show now a passion for ourselves. If the price is in fuel petrol, I don’t see why that price should jump in buses driven by diesel”.

“We are already working with the transport unions to see how we can isolate the cost of those transport vehicles that drive PMS, see the real impact now on their businesses and see how government can mitigate these costs”.

He added that just as some of the people also lost perishables, some of the farmers have already petitioned the Minisitry of Agriculture, necessistaing the State Government directing the Ministry to evaluate what the real losses of the farmers are, to see what kind of compensation can be given to them.

“We have also received representations from the taxi drivers union on their loans and they are asking to see whether they can benefit from the Federal Government’s discounted interest for buses because they have about 3000 taxi drivers and taxi workers who are likely to be affected by the increased interest rates at which they finance their vehicles coupled with the pump prices of fuel which may cascade into job losses if government does not intervene”, he explained.

He gave a commitment to make a representation to the Federal Government about it to see whether the policy for buses can apply to the taxi drivers, stressing that the administration is doing a lot in trying to plan how to mitigate the effects.

Said he: “Ultimately, it is our compassion and our love for one another that will be defining. I should not increase the prices of my services because the pump price of fuel has gone up if the impact of fuel in the service I provide is not driven by PMS”.

The Governor said he has also advised the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources to go and see the evaluation to the supply of petrol and other petroleum products and observe the compliance with the new prices in order to ensure that people are not being taken undue advantage of.

Also shedding light on the Budget appraisal session, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr Ben Akabueze said the cumulative 77 percent performance must rank among the highest recorded by any government in Nigeria in 2011.

“If you take into account that in the first half of the year, between the effect of election and transition into a new administration, swearing in of new cabinet members and the time that we lost, we worked very hard to catch up and in the last quarter we ran very fast”, Mr Akabueze stated.

He said by the target the government set for itself, the performance fell short, stressing that in 2012, the administration will work double hard to see if it can recoup any lost ground.