Remarks by His Excellency Seyi Makinde at the Kick-off of the Stakeholders Consultative Meeting 2024

Being the remarks by His Excellency Seyi Makinde, FNSE, Executive Governor of Oyo State, at the Kick-off of the Stakeholders Consultative and Town Hall Meeting in Preparation for the 2025 Budget and the Unveiling of Agenda 2040 and Medium-Term Plan for Oyo State on 25 September 2024.

Full Remarks at Stakeholders Consultative Meeting 2024

I welcome you all to the first in the series of Stakeholders Consultative and Town Hall Meetings in preparation for the 2025 Budget. This is the sixth series we will be holding since we assumed office in 2019.

You will agree with me that the economic landscape has changed drastically in the last five years. More recently, we are still grappling with the fallout of the partial removal of fuel subsidy and the peg on the Naira to Dollar exchange rates. As a subnational operating within this system, we have taken certain actions to lessen the burden on our people.

Within the last year we have implemented the Sustainable Actions for Economic Recovery (SAfER) through which we implemented short and mid-term strategies for socio-economic recovery. We have also worked at ensuring the implementation of the 2024 budget. At this time, we have achieved 53% implementation. You will all agree that we can do more.

And so, we come to you again to request your input into the 2025 budget. We have always said that government does not know it all, so when we come to you, we expect to get a deeper understanding of your pains and how best to use the budget to alleviate those pains. As we always say, this is your government and we will always act in your best interests.

I am a strong believer in using available data coupled with logic and science to solve problems. In addition, I acknowledge that proper documentation plays a key role in strategic problem solving. And this is why this event will also double as the unveiling of Agenda 2040 and Medium-Term Plan for Oyo State.

We are living in very tough economic times. It is a time that calls for strong leadership and tough decisions. But we must remain empathetic to the plight of our people. This is why we are always looking for ways and means to make things easier for our people.

Recently, the Presumptive Tax Bill was passed, yes, government needs money, but we said, look, we are not going to get this money by becoming enemies of the poor so, even though I will be signing the bill into law, we decided to suspend the implementation. A few days ago, I met with the residents of the Rashidi Ladoja Circular Road corridor who were protesting at the State Secretariat, and we reached a compromise. This is what we believe leadership and governance entails.

And so, we are looking at some new ideas to make things easier on our people. And in doing this, we need to check what people who have been in similar conditions like ours – because the economic situation we are facing is neither unique, nor first ever in humanity – so we see what we can borrow from them for implementation.

So, some of the things, I would like you to consider during [the stakeholders consultative meeting 2024] are:

1. Something patterned around the Brazillian Fome Zero. We can have digital food vouchers distributed to the vulnerable with which they can redeem food from designated food sellers. Instead of government buying the food and distributing. The food vouchers can be sent to their phones for accountability purposes
2. We can also think of something patterned after the Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program. Where government can give jobs 3–6-month jobs to people in various sectors such as road repairs, drainage and irrigation systems for agriculture, school rehabilitation, sanitation improvement and so on. What we call direct labour now, but on a broader scale. 
3. We should also be looking at working with the private sector to drive more inclusive agribusiness programmes and youth trainings. We know that private sector led initiatives are generally more sustainable in the long run

These are just three examples that we can deliberate on during these [stakeholders consultative meeting 2024] to see if and how they can work in our dear State.

Of course we are going to continue to support our farmers. I am aware that the Oyo State NG-CARES programme was just concluded where we distributed farm inputs to our farmers, we also have the tractorisation subsidy programme ongoing. We should also be looking at more support to our traders especially the micro and nano businesses. I am hoping that the enterprise support to YEAP beneficiaries will be disbursed by next month.

In the mid the long term, we have created a framework that even the people coming after us can follow. With Agenda 2040, our strategy is to focus on avenues to add value, and create a conducive environment for generating decent jobs. The latest stats from the National Bureau of Statistics shows Oyo State has 2% unemployment. This is one of the lowest in the country, but we want it to be even lower than that.

So, we keep working, we keep asking for your prayers so that we can lead right as we renew our pledge to continue to put you first in our decisions.

Thank you and God bless you.