2024 Budget: Osun APC’s Chronic Liar, Propagandist, Govt Tells Public

Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo

Apparently disturbed and uncomfortable with the geometric rate at which the administration of the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, is making a steady rise in virtually all sectors since inception, the state All Progressives Congress (APC) is out again to paint the administration black in the estimation of the public.

However, the Osun State Government is particularly miffed and appalled beyond description by the recent statement issued the opposition political party in scoring the Adeleke-led administration low in the 2024 budget performance.

The government stated that jumping into such empty conclusion about the underperformance of the 2024 budget is not only based on ignorance and mischief “but the usual calculated attempt at all times by the shameless opposition party in the state to paint the performing Adeleke-led administration black.”

The state government described the report as widely circulated on social media as an unwarranted and unnecessary propaganda “by the sinking APC in Osun State to whip up unnecessary sentiment, which at best, is dead on arrival, when viewed against the backdrop of the fact that the party has lost touch with the actual political realities and performance of Adeleke-led administration so far.”

The government added that: “It is a thing of surprise that in the so-called budget under-performance of Adeleke-led administration, APC in the baseless statement was busy selling dummy to the innocent members of the public as opposed to the real picture of the performance of the budget. For record purpose, this is the true position.

“The percentage analysed was based on the entire budget (100 percent) size for year 2024, whereas to get the actual performance for the first quarter, the budget needs to be pro-rated i.e. 100 percent divided by four.

“The first quarter performance should be based on the 25 percent of the budget size.

“In the office of the governor, which houses many government agencies like General Services, Bureau of Government House and Protocol, State Security, Sustainable Development Goals, UNDP, Parastatals Monitoring Office, among others, most of the expenditures referred to are one-off and necessary to stabilize the system, thus, the need for payment in the first quarter of the year.

“In other sectors, for instance, education, the total budget for 2024 is N37,614,185,160.00 and the first quarter pro-rata is N9,403,546,290.00  out of which the sum of N6,293,762,984.72 was  spent, and this account for 66.8 percent, and not 16 percent as misquoted. The same could be said of the Ministry of Works where the provision for the year is N44,493,184,250.00. The pro-rata for the first quarter is 11,123,296,062.5, however, a sum of N17,242,506,008.28 has been expended which accounted for 155.2 percent.

“In the environment sector, the total expected expenditure for the year is N2,241,111,860.00 of which the expenditure for the first quarter was to be N560,277,965.00. The pro-rata performance for the first quarter is N575.2 million which is 103 percent due to the need to guard against flood through dredging of streams across the state and preservation of forests.

“Talking about agriculture sector, most of the expenditure is expected to fall within the second and third quarters of the year which is the planting season.

“Finally, it must be drummed to the ears of the naysayers in Osun State in the guise of the APC that the first quarter performance cannot be used to appropriately judge the performance of yearly budget, since there are some expenditures that cannot be incurred early in the year.

“Therefore, to draw conclusion on their baseless and mischief in trade propaganda, overall performance of the budget for the first quarter of 2024 is 70.4 percent which is quite good targeting a minimum of 85 percent for the entire year.”