Sanwo Olu’s Speech at BudgIT State of States Presentation Report
Governor Samwo Olu of Lagos State gave an excellent speech at the BudgIT State of States presentation report, which provides some impressive information about current and future activities in Lagos State.
Below is the Speech
Today, I participated in the virtual State of States Report hosted by BudgITng with the theme: Exploring Fiscal Dimensions of Epidemic Preparedness of Lagos State. The fiscal health and sustainability of our state in the face of a mounting demand for better service delivery is now more important than ever.
In 2019, only 22.82% of our revenue came from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), which puts us in a class by ourselves among the 36 states and the FCT. As at August 2020, the percentage of FAAC in our total revenue base was 21.4% which speaks to the resilience of the Lagos State economy and our ability to ensure that we continue to maintain an independent approach to the FAAC contribution as a component of our revenue base.
In the first quarter of 2020, our actual revenue outperformed the budgeted figure by 6%. In May, we reviewed our budget downwards by 21%, in line with economic realities. As of August, our recurrent expenditure performed at 83% of the year’s target while capital expenditure performance was at 70%. This affirms that we have been realistic in our budget revision.
Even before the pandemic, we attracted investments to the state by aggressively overhauling the ease of doing business; although there is still a lot to be done in that aspect. We were able to attract an equity investment of $221million for the Lekki Deep Sea Port project.
The Imota Rice Mill on completion will produce about 2.4 million 50kg bags of rice per annum. We are ramping up efforts in the generation of revenue through innovative and sustainable approaches.
In Lagos, dwindling revenue will never be an excuse for poor governance or poor preparedness for epidemics. We know that the most efficient approach to epidemic preparedness is committing human and financial resources to preventive measures and where prevention fails we strive to do our best to protect our people.
The State of the States Report makes it clear that there is room for improvement on a number of fronts. We welcome these insights and are committed to implementing the necessary reforms to improve our performance.
I commend BudgITng for the insightful work and urge you to continue to support governments at national and sub-national levels with data and insights that will produce better governance.