The controversy and intrigues that has dogged the year 2019 budget of Lagos state is yet to abate as there seem to be uncertainty as to the whereabout of the Appropriation law passed by the state Assembly on April 29.
As at Friday last week, about two weeks after the passage of the budget by the Lagos State House of Assembly nobody is sure where the budget is.
The budget was passed on April 29 and the usual thing after passage on the floor is for the Clerk of the House to transmit a clean copy of the bill to the governor for assent as directed by the Speaker of the House.
But by Friday last week, two weeks after the budget was passed the governor was yet to sign or assent to the Appropriation law which will authorise the release of funds and commence its implementation.
The non signing of the law by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has raised speculations in many quarters and among Lagosians as to what is stopping the governor from signing the budget which many believe has suffered unnecessary delays and subjected to unnnecessary controversies.
Speculations are that the Lagos Assembly has refused to pass the instrument to the governor for signature for whatever reasons kown to the lawmakers even after it made the public believe that it has passed the budget.
While others believe that the governor does not want to sign the budget since he has just three weeks to the end of his tenure which means he can not implement a substantial part of the budget in which case he would rather wait for the incoming governor to sign the document since the onus of implementation now falls on him.
However, attempts to find out the true situation and what was really delaying signing of the budget, our correspondent found out that the budget may still be with the Assembly as there is no sign that it has been transmitted to the executive.
When we contacted the Clerk of the House, Mr. Azeez Sanni, he said as a civil servant he can not speak with the press but directed us to the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Speaker or the Chairman of the information committee.
Though the information committee chairman was not available, the CPS, Musbau Razaq promised to get across to us later but several calls to him later for response was not answered.
Not satisfied with the brickwall, we approached the Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade who said that it is an administrative affair and that it is only the Clerk who can throw light on whether the budget has been transmitted to the governor or not.
When told that the Clerk said as a civil servant he can not talk with the press, Agunbiade said what he knows is that the House has passed the budget and other thing left is administrative which only the Clerk can speak on.
On the executive side top government officials including some exco members only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
They were emphatic on the fact that the Assembly had not transmitted the budget to the governor, that the Assembly was still holding on to the budget.
One even said that the governor can not sign a law he has not seen, while another said the Assembly was playing politics with the budget.
Yet another said it is a delibrate ploy by the Assembly to prevent the governor from spending from the budget and that they only plan to transmit the budget to the executive only after the new governor is sworn-in.
Political pundits are however surprised that so much politics is being played with the 2019 budget of Lagos State with the dramatis personae not bordered about its consequences on governance and the people of the state.
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