By Josephine Oguntoyinbo

The Ondo State House of Assembly has passed the year 2024 budget into law .

With the passage, the Ondo State Government is to spend a total sum of N395,257,000,000.00 Billion in the 2024 fiscal year.
N172.997.172,500.00 billion is for recurrent expenditure, while N222,259,827,500.00
billion is for capital expenditure.

The approved budget was increased by N10,724,,000,000 billion.

The House had earlier committed the year 2024 budget proposal
to the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation for scrutiny and defence by MDAs which ended last week.

Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa had earlier presented a total Budget of N384,533 billion for the 2024 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly.

The budget, tagged “Budget of Economic Resilience” is higher than that of the 2023 fiscal year which was N275,979,184,000 Billion .

Presenting its report at a plenary presided over by the Speaker,Olamide Oladiji today, the Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Oluwole Ogunmolasuyi said the Committee observed among others that the fiscal documents takes cognizance of the economic reality.

He therefore called on MDAs to ensure that provisions of the budget are applied to the needs stated therein.

He added that the State Government should take necessary steps that will propel all income generating MDAs to embark on more result oriented internally generated revenue drive in line with extant laws.

He advised that all MDAs that have desired to exceed their revenue generating targets should be given the required support to succeed.

He therefore enjoined other Lawmakers to consider the fiscal document for passage, having undergone necessary scrutiny.

After the Speaker subjected the report to critical debate at the plenary and scaling through the third reading, it was unanimously adopted for passage through a majority voice vote.

In his Speech, Speaker Oladiji noted that the 2024 fiscal budget will further drive the growth of the economy and commencement of new projects and programmes that are crucial to the development of the State.

While commending Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa for his role in the passage of the bill, he assured that both the executive and the legislature will continue to work in harmony in the best interest of the State.

Meanwhile,a bill to appropriate the sum N6,324,243,343.00 billion , out of which the sum of N5,468,791,588.00 billion Is For Recurrent Expenditure and the sum Of N855,451, 755.00 million Is for capital expenditure for the services of the Ondo State Internal Revenue Service (ODIRS) For year 2024 has also been passed into law after scaling through the third reading.