Osun State government has allocated N702million to meals and entertainment for Office of the Governor and Secretary to the State Government in the 2024 budget of the state.

The Commissioner for Budget, Professor Ademola Adeleke who confirmed this during budget analysis in Osogbo debunked the insinuation that N11billion was allocated to meals and entertainment.

Adeleke said about 8 billion naira was allocated for total recurrent in the Office of the Governor comprises of the governor, deputy and Chief of Staff office, Bureau of General Services, Bureau of Government House and Protocol, Bureau of Parastatal and Bureau of Social Services.

He said only N600 million out of the N8billion was allocated for meals and entertainment. He said about N3billion was allocated to the Office of the Secretary to the State Government out of which, N102 million was allocated to meals and entertainment.

The commissioner said there is an improvement in recurrent to capital ratio from 68:32 in 2023 to 60:40 in 2024.

According to him, “We have 60 per cent of our budget being estimated for recurrent while 40 per cent for infrastructure. Osun State has surpassed the 30 per cent for infrastructure benchmark of the federal government,” he added.

“The 2024 approved estimate does not base on net financing (i.e. Loan). The 2024 approved estimate has taken care of the debt commitment of the previous administration in terms of debt services as well as pension and gratuity,” he said.