Press Releases

Fashola Affirms Lagos Is On The Right As 2009 Bugdet Records 73 Per Cent Performance

Jan 15, 2010 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN) on Friday disclosed that the State 2009 budget recorded an aggregate performance of 73 percent, affirming that the state is on the right path.

According to Governor Fashola who spoke in an interview with newsmen during a three day retreat organized for members of the State Executive Council and Permanent Secretaries held at the Eko Tourist Beach Resort , Akodo, the budget recorded a 71 percent performance in the fourth quarter of last year.

His words: “I am really convinced that we are on the right path. It is a journey and we will get there.”

He added that an impact measurement across all sectors of law and order, education, health and environment has been quite impressive.

Said he “We have seen increases in level of security from the implementation of our budget in the law and order sector and social justice. While from the environment, there has been improved cleanliness, improved standard of life and an improved quality of life”.

“We are gradually taking our people away from disease and squalor. It is a great improvement which would also help to increase the benchmark of the life expectancy of the people in the fullness of time”.

He added that Government is also improving cleanliness of the air that people breathe and recording an improvement in the awareness on the need for reduction of the hazards of noise.

“Noise levels are beginning to be a concern in this economy and we are seeing a reduction. The awareness is now there that people don’t want noise. The next challenge is how to begin to change the noise culture and its impact”, Governor Fashola added.

He informed that in the healthcare sector, there has been an improvement and increased number of bed spaces and newer hospitals, adding that more and more people have gained confidence in public hospitals and are embracing the public health facilities.

The Governor explained that although this has resulted in more pressures being put on doctors, the state has witnessed an improvement in its doctors to patients as well as nurses to patients’ ratio by the employment, training and capacity issues it has addressed.

In terms of rural development, Governor Fashola said there has been an appreciable budget impact, which has occasioned an improvement of economic activity in the rural areas as a result of rural programmes like electrification, water supply and integration of rural development.

“More and more people are staying in the rural areas which mean that our objective of stopping rural - urban migration is being achieved by providing activity centres for people living in the rural areas.

“The economies are opening up in those sectors because the infrastructure is coming there. It is translating to increased money, improved values of property and rural areas”, he emphasised.

Governor Fashola said in the education sector, there has been an increase in enrolment of pupils in public schools as people are now taking their pupils out of private schools as a direct result of some of the measures already put in place through the budget implementation.

He identified some of the measures which are already having the desired effect as reintroduction of voluntary societies, distribution of free textbooks, desks, training of teachers and the employment of more teachers.

While responding to a question on the priority areas for the Budget 2010 now before the House of Assembly, Governor Fashola said the Government would also look at how to generally ensure social stability in the State as it is observing the problem in the financial sector and the subsequent job losses there.

He said the job losses would affect the state revenue because everyone that loses his job would not pay taxes, reassuring that Government owes it a duty to ensure that such people find their feet.

“We are going to be deepening our rural development programmes while we continue with our youth, women, infrastructure development and micro credit intervention programmes,” Governor Fashola said.

He promised that Government will continue to work on improving access to land as well as the rates at which permits are processed, adding that the state has taken out some rates through its Ways and Means Committee to make the process more affordable.

The Governor expressed the hope that the State will come out with some other policies to make it cheaper so that the sector can come alive, stressing that this can stimulate activities and help the banks bounce back by stimulating developments in real estate and housing development.

He informed that those are strategic interventions that would stabilize the economy and allow the financial sector into new vistas of investments so that it invests and flourishes, thereby preventing the need to shed jobs.

Also shedding more light on the performance of the 2009 budget, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr Ben Akabueze said the overall performance of 73 percent is commendable, expressing the hope that effort would be made to push the performance level up.

While agreeing that revenue available to the state has always been a limiting factor in the performance of its budget, he said Lagos has consistently demonstrated that it has capacity to turn the resources that it receives into goods and services for the people of Lagos State.

“We will keep asking the people to do more. Not everyone in the tax bracket is yet in there. Not everyone in the bracket is paying what they should be paying . This is our challenge,” he said.

“We will continually improve our project planning and delivery system. There is always room for improvement, but on the part of the people, they should pay their taxes and dues which Government is entitled to”, he explained.

“We ask also that the people should pay attention to all Government properties and projects. The people should take personal ownership of such properties such that they can become an extension of the monitoring system and help in keeping the contractor on his toes and reporting tardiness in performance”.

Mr Akabueze said when the people perform such monitoring role, instead of 73 percent, the budget can actually do 90percent, adding that with such scenario it is the people that will benefit.

In his words: “It is not about Government doing better, it is about all of us wanting to see a higher performance of the budget”.

The ongoing retreat which is expected to end on Saturday is being attended by Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Princess Sarah Adebisi Sosan, members of the State Executive Council, Permanent Secretaries and heads of extra ministerial departments.