Oyo State Governor ‘Seyi Makinde said yesterday that his administration had taken actions to lessen the burden of residents amid economic challenges facing the people.
He added that through the actions and his administration’s engagements with residents, which enabled them to have inputs in the state’s budgets, the economic landscape of the state had changed over the last five years.
The governor said this at the Stakeholders’ Consultative Meeting on the 2025 Budget and the unveiling of Oyo State Agenda 2040, held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
He equally unveiled Agenda 2040 for Oyo State and the Five Years Medium Term Development Plan 2023-2027, which were driven by the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, with the support of DFID/PERL, DAWN Commission, UNICEF and the University of Ibadan Ventures Limited (Consultancy Service Unit).
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Makinde said with the agenda, his administration’s strategy was to focus on avenues that could add value and create a conducive environment for creating decent jobs for the people.
He said the state government had to grapple with the fallouts of the removal of fuel subsidy and the peg on naira to dollar exchange rate, a development that led to it taking actions to mitigate the hardship facing the people.
Makinde, who maintained that the 2024 Budget had been implemented up to 53 per cent, said he was looking forward to 90 per cent implementation by the end of the year.
Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Prof Musbau Babatunde, said Oyo State budgets had, over the last five years, turned out well and worked in the interest of the people because of the bottom-up approach to its preparation.
He lauded Governor Makinde, noting that the state’s budget performance had been increasing on a yearly basis.
The Chairman of the House of Assembly Committee on Budget, Public Accounts, Finance and Appropriation, Sunkanmi Babalola, assured residents of the readiness of the Assembly to see to the equitable implementation of the budget.