From Owen Akenzua, Asaba
Delta State House of Assembly on Wednesday passed the 2023 Revised Appropriation Bill into law.
The bill will now reflect the changes in the budget from the previous N571.64 billion signed into law.
Thus, the amended recurrent expenditure will now be N502.3 billion, as against the previous N235.5 billion, while capital expenditure will now be N307.4 billion as against N336.1 billion, making the entire budget size for 2023 to be N809.8 billion.
Majority Leader of the House, Engr Emeka Nwaobi moved the motion for the passage of the Bill after an extensive debate.
Before then, a motion for the suspension of Order 12, Rule 90 to 92, was seconded by Emmanuel Sinebe, member representing Patani constituency.
Also, the Bill for the Delta State Prevention and Prohibition of Destruction and Vandalisation of Public Properties and Assets scaled second reading which was moved by James Augoye, on behalf of 19 other lawmakers and was seconded by Marylin Okowa-Daramola, representing Ika North East Constituency.
Leading the debate on the merits of the bill, Augoye said: “I discovered that a lot of projects initiated by the state and federal governments, including private properties, had been vandalised by disgruntled miscreants, especially education infrastructure and facilities, including community health infrastructure in our local councils.
“Telecommunications infrastructure are not left out, as road constructed by government has been damaged and destroyed through the laying of cable pipes without government’s approval.”
Adding that these observed occurrences led to the urgent need to initiate and establish a law that would address issues of vandalisation of public and private property and other infrastructure, Augoye urged his colleagues to take up the responsibility of making laws that would protect not only life, but properties initiated by government as, in doing so, it would save more money for the construction of other projects instead of spending money on rehabilitating already constructed ones.
He urged his fellow lawmakers to give the bill the needed support by ensuring its passage.
