A member of the Prominent Indigenes of Lagos State, Dr. Ade Dosunmu, has carpeted Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the House of Assembly over the 2022 budget passed into law recently.
Dosunmu stated, yesterday, in Lagos, that the executive and legislature were engaging in financial recklessness.
On November 24, 2021, Governor Sanwo-Olu presented a proposal of N1.38tr tagged ‘Budget of Consolidation’ to the House of Assembly as the state’s 2022 budget, he noted.
“It is exceedingly shocking that the Assembly passed a totally different budget padded to the tune of N1,758,196,448.44 (an addition of almost N400b to the proposed figure of N1.38tr),” he added.
Dosunmu said the issue opened nagging questions that must be answered by the state.
“Where, why and how did the House of Assembly conjure additional N350b over the meticulously prepared and ratified document put together by the state’s bureaucracy? What did the governor omit in his original budget proposal to warrant such mind-boggling increment from the supposed hallowed chambers of the Assembly? Why did the governor not ask any question as President Muhammadu Buhari did to the N37b padding of the national budget by the National Assembly?
“Could this be a connivance or collusion between the executive and the legislative arms of the state to siphon a substantial portion of the Lagos budget? Could the defiant attempt to raise capital expenditure from N823.35b to N1.166.2tr be laying foundation for a white elephant project as 2023 elections draw closer?” he wondered.
The former Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said these questions were not rhetorical.
“As Lagosians, I believe we need clarification and the Lagos government needs to be transparent in the way our collective patrimony is being spent.
“The helpless people of Lagos are left to wonder how the state genuinely and sincerely plans to fund this outrageous budget without recourse to another of its scandalous and potentially enslaving borrowings,” he added.
