The Oba of Benin, Omo N' Oba Erediauwa, has condemned the Edo State House of Assembly over its decision to slash the state budget presented to it by Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
He expressed shock and sadness over how the House slashed down the governor's vote for the repair of the bad roads and flooded areas in Benin City.
In the letter addressed to the Speaker of the House of Assembly, he said: "I have had access to see the breakdown of His Excellency's budget as approved by the Honourable House, and Mr. Speaker, I was shocked and saddened to see how the House slashed down the Governor's vote for the repair of the bad roads and flooded areas in Benin City.
"If the Honourable House does not respect Benin City, as the capital of Benin Kingdom, the Honourable House should respect Benin City as the state capital of Edo State, which deserves to be beautified. The poor state of the roads in the state capital is well known from previous state governments. And now that the present governor is determined to tackle the problems, he is being frustrated by the drastic reduction in the vote he proposed for it.
"When I heard he presented the budget to the House, I wrote to congratulate him and prayed that God would provide the wherewithal to enable him implement it. At the time I was writing that letter to him, I was having in mind what the condition of Benin City roads was like.
"I am using this medium to appeal to you, Hounorable speaker, to move the House to restore the amount slashed from the vote for roads. I would be most grateful if my appeal meets with favourable consideration."
Meanwhile, Oshiomhole and members of the Edo State House of Assembly appear to be headed for a collision course over the 2009 Appropriation Bill as the state governor declared yesterday that he would not assent to the budget as passed by the House.
The lawmakers had on February 19 passed a budget of N70.26billion which comprises N42.37billion capital expenditure and N27.89 billion recurrent expenditure as against the N75.54 billion comprising N35.66billion as capital project and N39.88 billion for recurrent expenditure.
Oshiomhole said that he would only assent to the budget if the amount deducted by the parliament is included in the budget.
He made his position known while playing host to the Executive of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) who paid him a courtesy visit.
Oshiomhole noted that if the budget proposal was allowed to remain as passed by the House of Assembly, government may fall into the temptation of executing projects that would not have any impact on the lives of the people of the state.
On the removal of the expansion of Ugbowo-Lagos and Airport Roads to six lanes from the budget by the lawmakers, Oshiomhole vowed that the state government would not rescind on its proposals, adding that his government would resist any attempt to draw the state back.
Said he: "If we do not fight today, the people will fight us tomorrow."
Oshiomhole lamented the conduct of engineers on the employ of the state government, stating that they do not reflect on the well thought-out modus operandi of the society's agenda, maintaining that their problems were "errors of the mind and not of the head".
He charged the society to revisit the body's code of conduct and bring their members who erred to justice when their members were discovered to have connived with contractors to over-value contracts.
According to him, "In most cases, you see government engineers defending what is not defendable and that is why we have said we will not rely on valuation of papers issued by ministries but will set-up projects verification team which will include surveyors to advise government on what is actually on ground."
Earlier in his speech, President of the society, Mr. Kayode Adeniji, advised the governor to revisit the comprehensive design sent to previous administrations for implementation in the state on ways to tackle problematic areas for effective flood and erosion control for implementation.