Five months after the Edo State House of Assembly reduced the 2024 budgetary allocation to the office of the State Deputy Governor to N354.5 million from the initial N1.3 billion, the House has received a letter from the state government to revise the budget.
Newspot reports that the House received the letter from Governor Godwin Obaseki for the revision of the budget at plenary on Monday.
The governor’s letter dated May 16, 2024 was addressed to the Speaker of the House, Blessing Agbebaku.
The letter titled, ‘Forwarding of the revised year 2024 Edo State budget’, was signed by Osarodion Ogie, Secretary to the State Government and read by the Clerk of the House, Yahaya Omogbai at the plenary.
The letter reads: “I write on the instance of the Governor of Edo State, Mr Godwin Obaseki to forward herewith 30 copies of the Year 2024 Revised Edo State Budget for consideration and approval of the Honourable House.”
Newspot reports that the revision of the budget was geared towards shoring up the budgetary allocation to the Office of the Deputy Governor which is now being occupied by Marvelous Godwins Omobayo, the new deputy governor of Edo State.
The initial budgetary allocation of N1,337,935,600 to the office of the deputy governor was reduced to N354,522,720 on December 26, 2023, during the face-off between Obaseki and his now impeached deputy, Phillip Shaibu.
Newspot recalls that the Speaker of the House Blessing Agbebaku, while defending the reduction of the budgetary allocation to the Office of the Deputy Governor, had opined that the impeached deputy governor, Philip Shaibu, was not expected to carry out too many functions in 2024, as he would be contesting for the governorship election.
The Speaker had said, “The Deputy Governor doesn’t have constitutional functions bestowed on him except those which are allocated to him by Mr Governor.
“Allocation has been done in a way to reflect the office. However, on this occasion, the Governor stated clearly that since the Deputy Governor had not performed his functions in the outgoing year because of his aspiration, which he recognised to be a huge one and time-consuming, most of his functions were relocated to other offices as the governor has the powers to do so.
“All of us know that the Deputy Governor doesn’t have constitutional functions bestowed on him except that which are allocated to him by the Governor. So, most of those things that the Deputy Governor used to do, the Governor has taken away from him.
“The Deputy Governor has even complained that he is no longer working. If you are not working, why allocate money to the office?
“The money is not allotted to you as a personal gift, it is given for work. So, if you are not working, naturally the money will not come, and there is no way you can be working effectively when you have an ambition of becoming the Governor.
“We are talking about a year where most of it, almost 11 months, will be on electioneering. So, how are you now going to function properly as a Deputy Governor?”
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