Fashola laments delay in monthly allocation

Governor of the western Nigerian state of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola said the delay in remitting the monthly allocation to the state by the Federal Government has affected the state’s budget performance.

Lagos recorded 70 percent budget performance in the third quarter and an aggregate of 71 percent performance for the year.

Fashola spoke to newsmen during the third quarter budget review at the State House, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Thursday.


“We recorded 70 percent in the third quarters. It is a slight dip in the overall aggregate of 72 percent mid-year review to 71 percent now. But it is a larger dip from 83 percent for the second quarter.

 What is positive here is that what we report as budget performance is the combination of work done and payment made.

“There is a lot of work that has been completed, that we have not paid for. The core reason for that is the revenue shortfall we have been experiencing and delay in revenue that is coming from the federal government.

This includes delay in the remittances of FAAC allocations and lack of agreement on NNPC accounts at the FAAC meetings. I think over two months now, between August and September, the FAAC payment did not come on time,” he stated.

The governor also said the augmentation also did not come on time, saying that “as far as I am aware, not all of it has probably come from the last report that I got. So, it puts our planning into some distortions.

We hope that things will look upward and positive in the final quarter. We expect that as a country, we cannot continue to have this distortion in revenue collection and projection where the largest source of revenue comes from a single item.”

Fashola also called for probe over the 400,000 barrels of oil, which the federal government said was stolen, saying it is smacks of corruption for such thing to be happening in the country.

According to him, “if we are reporting some of the excuses that we heard, 400,000 barrels of oil is being stolen. The story does not change. Some of the questions really are: is it a fixed amount of oil being stolen every month? Even if oil thieves do not change, is it still the same amount? We need to look at this thing more rigorously,” he stated.

The governor, however, said most of the ongoing infrastructure projects in the state had reached advanced stage, saying that roads were being completed in Epe, Ajah, Agege and Ajao. He said the Ajao Link Bridge has been completed.

PM NEWS