Lawmakers peg 57 local councils budget to N59. 2 bn

 

Admin IJuly 31, 2015

 

LAGOS – The Lagos State House of Assembly has pegged the cumulative budget of the 57 local councils in the state to for the year 2015 to N59, 287,974,102. Lagos has 20 local governments and 37 local council development areas, making 57.

The decision to peg the budget followed a report submitted by the House ad- hoc committee headed by the Chief Whip, Hon. Rotimi Abiru.

All the 57 local councils are currently being run by executive secretaries, following expiration of elected local government chairmen earlier in the year. A breakdown of the budget showed that Ifelodun Local Council Development Area got the highest vote of N1,632,880,355.48 followed by Apapa Local Government Area with a total  budget of N1,624,051,414.28.

Agege Local Government got N1,459, 916,003.00  while Ajeromi/Ifelodun Local Government got N1,557,825,411.00. Others are  Ikeja, N1,001,105,683.16; Lagos Mainland, N1,589,879,806.22 and Mushin Local Government Area, N1,139,863,539.33 among others.

While submitting the report which was approved by the house,  Abiru said that the decision to scrutinize the budget of the 20 local governments and the 37 LCDAs was in consonance with Section 3 of the Local Government Council Committee Law, 2007.

He said that his committee swung into action, just last June 18  since the House Committee on Economic Planning and Budget, which initiated the assignment during the 7th Assembly “could not conclude it before the dissolution of the House on Monday, 1st June, 2015.”

Abiru said most of the councils performed poorly in the area of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), hence their reliance on Federal Allocation.

“The overhead estimate of the LGAs and LCDAs in the State were bloated to the detriment of the Capital  Expenditure which does not augur well for development at the grass roots; and the LGAs and LCDAs do not have a uniform template for budget preparation.”

In passing the budget, members urged the LGAs and LCDAs to explore all revenue sources and block leakages in order to improve on IGR.