The Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, on Tuesday, approved the promotion of all civil and public servants whose promotions were due in 2022.

The PUNCH reports that the Makinde administration conducted the 2017-2022 promotion exercises; and for 2022, the governor had also given approval for the conduct of the promotion of 7, 276 civil servants.

A statement by the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Dotun Oyelade, in Ibadan, the state capital, said the approval was taken during the Executive Council meeting.

He stressed further that the development was consistent with the government’s policy on workers’ welfare in the past four years.

Oyelade said, “The state Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Musbau Babatunde, said the Exco approved the realignment of the 2023 supplementary budget, to be presented to the state House of Assembly for approval.

“He said the decision was necessitated by the twin economic policy of subsidy removal and the unification of exchange rate has led to some shifts in macro-economic fundamentals in the state, with respect to inflation, exchange and interest rates. The government took into decision certain projects that are going on, overridden by costs. The requests by Ministries, Departments and Agencies on the need to situate their current budget performance in the context of the shift in macroeconomic fundamentals.

“The increment in the 2023 budget size is from N310,432,500,000.00 to the sum of N352,382,500,000.00. The idle funds in some MDAs have been realigned in line with the current economic realities. He said the government is currently negotiating with the Nigeria Labour Congress, and decisions taken from the meeting will be included in the realigned supplementary budget.

“The Medium Term Expenditure Framework (2024-2026) on which the 2024 budget will be premised has been approved by the Exco. The approved figure for this is N424,410,611,938.00. This is an increase of the sum of N69,237,658,025.00 which represents 19.49 per cent over the 2023 pre-empted figure of N355,172,953,913.00.

“He said the current realigned budget of N352,382,500,000.00 mirrors the Oyo State Government’s projection perfectly, for the year 2023. We expect the Medium Term Expenditure Framework to be a good guide for the fiscal balance of the year 2024 budget,” he explained.