By Ola Ajayi

IBADAN- GOVERNOR Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has signed the state’s 2012 Appropriation Bill into law, promising that he will aggressively pursue tax administration and management to ensure effective service delivery.

During the signing of the budget which was witnessed by the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mrs. Monsurat Sunmonu, and other lawmakers, Ajimobi promised to effectively monitor and evaluate all ongoing projects through effective cost control and value addition.

Describing the budget as the one that would restore the state to its old glory of a pace setter, he said, “this is a budget of restoration. When we came in, Oyo State had lost substantially its pace setter position – education, health, infrastructural development, industrial base – virtually everything had deteriorated.

“Therefore, we decided to have a budget of restoration, restoring Oyo State to its old glory of a pace setting state. We not only want to restore but also want to transform Oyo State into a new level that will be the envy of all.

“We believe we are capable of doing this with the support of the House of Assembly, with the support of the executive and the masses.”

The Speaker had earlier given the size of the budget as N172.5 billion made up of N77.5 billion recurrent expenditure and N95 billion as capital expenditure.

According to Sunmonu, the new budget gave a difference of N8.9 billion over the amended N163.6 billion budget earlier presented to the Assembly.

She said the varied votes were as a result of conviction by the lawmakers to insert new sums to provide critical services to the people of the state.

About a fortnight ago, the legislative arm passed the budget and increased it from N163.6billion to N172.5billion.
Ajimobi said his administration was a government of a rainbow coalition and a government that, even in the House of Assembly, “you can see that coalition and it has been working very well, both intellectually and governmentally.

“We believe that the House of Assembly is an Assembly that we are all proud of. I say this without any equivocation because I have received tremendous support from the House. And this is not surprising. When you have a class of people who are well educated and are very patriotic, you cannot expect less”.