December 19, 2017

The Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriation on Tuesday said it would scrutinise the state’s 2018 budget and block leakages.

The Chairman of the Committee, Mr Gbolahan Yishawu (APC- Eti-Osa II), told newsmen in Lagos that the lawmakers would ensure judicious allocation of resources for the growth and development of the state.

““Traditionally, the House of Assembly will scrutinise the budget. We are going to ensure that we go deep. Every step we have taken is for the people of Lagos.

““We will ensure that the money for the people of the state is judiciously and strictly applied for development purposes.

“”We will weed out any devil in the system who may want to outsmart the government or be fraudulent,’’ he said.

The chairman said that the committee would plug all loopholes in the budget, adding that the House already gave the committee free hand to scrutinise the budget.

He said that the state had developed new strategies on revenue generation to capture more people into the tax net.

According to him, only about 300, 000 house owners pay land use charges out of the two million houses in the state.

On possibilities of leakages and sharp practices, the chairman said that he had not seen any serious level of leakage in the system.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Assembly on Monday set up a seven-man committee to scrutinise the state’s N1.046 trillion budget proposal for 2018.

The budget, which represents 28.67 per cent increase over the 2017 budget of N812 billion, had a Capital Expenditure of N699 billion and a Recurrent Expenditure of N347billion.