The Ekiti House of Assembly on Wednesday passed the estimates of the 2015 appropriation bill which were presented to the legislators on Dec,.15 by Gov. Ayo Fayose.

Fayose

It was reported that the House, however, sat at the plenary, without allowing any media coverage.

The Speaker, Mr Dele Olugbemi, later told reporters that the House passed a bill of N80.9 billion, as against the initial figure of N80,774 billion earlier presented by the governor.

He explained that the House had to add about N200 million to the estimates presented by the governor, in view of urgent repairs that were needed to be carried out in the House of Assembly, to complex the structure.

A clean copy of the budget estimates is expected to be presented to the governor for his assent soon, to formally enact it into law, for implementation by the state government.

This is coming just as the embattled former Speaker, Dr Adewale Omirin, has reacted sharply, declaring the passage of the budget estimates as “an illegal and futile exercise.”

He said in a statement by his Media Adviser, Mr Wole Olujobi, that the seven PDP lawmakers that sat behind closed doors to pass the budget had already been suspended by the 19 APC legislators.

Meanwhile, Gov. Mr Ayo Fayose, has urged Nigerians not to despair as they welcome the new year, saying that with faith and confidence in God, Nigeria would overcome all her challenges.

The governor, in his New Year message to the people in Ado-Ekiti on Wednesday, also called for the cooperation and support of all for the state and the nation at large to progress.

He held that as the nation prepared for the general elections in February, all hands must be on deck to ensure a peaceful and successful polls.

“We have to look towards 2015 with great hope and expectation that it will be well with our state and our country, and that with our support, our leaders will take us to greater heights.

“Those in charge of conducting the general elections have given the assurance that they will ensure a transparent exercise, I appeal to politicians and non-politicians to play the game in accordance with the rules.

“For my people in Ekiti, there is hope that brighter days lie ahead of us. We came to office to meet a lot of challenges, the most prominent being the poor state of the economy and a huge debt profile,” Fayose said.

“In the last two months that we have been in office, we have embarked on road projects, the resuscitation of water supply schemes, as well as erosion control projects and we are not shying away from our responsibility of improving the welfare of our people.

“It is in that respect that we have started the faithful implementation of our Stomach Infrastructure programme and despite what critics would say, that has set a standard for others to emulate.” he added.