Edo Assembly Passes 2012 Appropriation Bill

The Edo State House of Assembly last Wednesday in Benin passed the Edo 2012 Appropriation Bill of  N150.9 billion.

Our correspondent reports that Governor Adams Oshiomhole had in December 2011 presented a budget proposal of N148.87 billion for 2012 to the Edo Assembly for consideration.

The 2012 budget passed by the Edo House of Assembly is N2.1 billion higher than proposed Appropriation Bill presented to the House by the governor.

The 2012 recurrent expenditure is now put at N64.5 billion as against N63.9 billion earlier proposed while the capital expenditure is now N86.4 billion as against N84.9 billion proposed by the governor.

The Chairman House Committee on Appropriation, Mr Peter Aliyu, attributed the increase in the recurrent expenditure to the implementation of the new minimum wage.

He also said that the need to provide for the emolument of professional staff to be recruited in key MDAs also contributed to the increase.

The other sectoral budget proposal allocation includes Education N7.7 billion, Health N3 billion, Agriculture 0.5 billion, and water N695 billion, among others.

The Speaker, Mr Uyigue Igbe, has directed that clean copies be sent to the governor for his accent.