BREAKING: Lagos Assembly Approves N1.25tn As Amended 2021 Budget

BREAKING: Lagos Assembly Approves N1.25tn As Amended 2021 Budget

The Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday approved N1.25 trillion as an amendment to the 2021 budget. This followed a request brought to the House by Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu recently.

The approval was made through a voice vote of members at the sitting presided over by Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. (Dr) Mudashiru Obasa

Obasa, thereafter, ordered the Clerk of the House, Mr. Olalekan Onafeko, to pass a clean copy of the report to the Governor for his assent.

Governor Sanwo-Olu had in September 2021 requested the House to approve the amendment to this year’s Appropriation Law of N1.164 trillion passed by the lawmakers on December 29, 2020.

Obasa said the governor was requesting the House to authorise the reordering of N460.58 billion to N496.26 billion for the recurrent expenditure; and N702.93 billion to N759.59 billion for the capital expenditure.

During the deliberations leading to the passage of amended law, the Chairman of the House Committee on Budget and Economic Planning, Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu, read the various sectoral allocations and announced the new appropriation law as N1,256,567,592,651 trillion. According to Yishawu, a sum of N513,343,338,737 was approved for recurrent from the consolidated revenue fund. He added that a sum of N743,224,253,914 from the Development Fund was approved for capital expenditure both for the year ending December 31, 2021.

Meanwhile, the members of the Lagos Assembly have agreed that law enforcement agents operating in the state needed to be trained always.

The lawmakers made their positions known as they read for a second time a bill for the creation of a law enforcement training institute in the state. Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. (Dr) Mudashiru Obasa, who presided over the sitting, described the bill as very important adding that the proposal should have the stipulations that would make it a good law.

He committed the bill to the House Committee on Judiciary to report in weeks. Earlier during the debate on the bill, Hon. Victor Akande, chairman of the Committee on Judiciary and Public Petitions, said it was long overdue.

“Policing in Lagos State has a little lacuna. Thus we have to put up a centre for the training of our own to teach them the modern way of doing it,” he said.

On his part, Hon. Bisi Yusuff said the institute was necessary because “most of our law enforcement agents do not understand the job. When well implemented, the institute will help to remould the agents.”

In his contribution, Hon. Rotimi Olowo noted that Lagos, being a megacity and economic hub of the country, has some challenges in relation to security.

“There are certain criteria for recruitment. The training institute will be able to look at that area,” he said adding that the institute would help train enforcement agents on the use of modern technology in intelligence gathering and prosecution.

“Some of our security personnel do not even know how to use the smartphones. So this bill is apt,” he added stressing that the institute would help agents treat people with dignity.

Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu also argued that having an institute to train and retrain law enforcement agents would help them keep abreast of modern ways of securing society. For Hon. David Setonji, the bill is the first of its kind among states of the federation.