Yenagoa — Gover-nor Timipre Sylva has given his administration pass mark on its financial reforms.
Chief Sylva at the signing of the N162 billion 2011 appropriation bill into law in Yenagoa said: “Our reforms are working.”

Giving an assessment of his administration’s performance in office for the past three and half years the governor said he was forced to praise himself like the proverbial lizard which fell from a tall iroko tree.

He explained that the reforms had de-emphasised budgeting process in the state and created a template, expressing happiness that he would leave a legacy of a system that works when he would eventually leave office.

According to him, the application of the Bayelsa State Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, among others has helped to significantly improve budgeting process in the state as well as the enacted three-year economic blueprint last year.

“For me, it is very significant. It shows that we have gained experience in the past three or four years we have been running the government together,” he said.

Sylva assured that his administration would rigorously implement the budget which is targeted at the completion and commissioning of specific projects in April and October.

He warned the state executive council members not to come to him with anything outside the budget and also charged them to gear up and get to work.

Speaking while presenting the budget to Sylva for signing into law, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Nestor Binabo disclosed that the assembly increased the N161.3bn presented by the governor on September 30, 2010 to N162bn.

He said out of the N162bn, N91.08bn was for recurrent expenditure while N70.91bn was for capital expenditure.