The Lagos State House of Assembly has approved a request by the executive to acquire the existing concession rights and toll revenue benefits held by the Lekki Concession Company, the concessionaire for the Eti-Osa-Lekki-Epe Expressway.
The House gave its approval on Tuesday for the buy-over of the LCC at an emergency plenary session when it approved Governor Babatunde Fashola’s request for a supplementary budget for 2013.
The supplementary budget proposal to the House, signed by Fashola and dated August 19, was read on the floor by the Clerk of the House, Ganiyu Abiru.
The Commissioners for Budget and Economic Planning, Ben Akabueze; Finance, Ayo Gbeleyi; and Works and Infrastructure, Obafemi Hamzat, came to defend the proposal.
After a question and answer session with them, the House approved the amendment of the budget and re-ordered the existing revenue heads.
With the latest amendment, the revised budget increased from N499.6 billion to N507.1 billion.
The Internally Generated Revenue was reduced by N22.5 billion and external loans by N30 billion.
Both were added to bond issue requirement totaling N87.5 billion.
The House also approved N7.5 billion to the existing internal loans of N44.5 billion, making it N51.9billion, and also reduced the recurrent expenditure from N229.7 billion to N214.7 billion.
The Capital Expenditure was supplemented from N269.8 billion to N292.3 billion.
The governor’s letter stated that the amendment would effectively accelerate the transfer of ownership of the Lekki-Epe Expressway to the state.
Fashola noted that this would leave the state with wider policy options with regards to the important road infrastructure.
The supplementary budget, the governor said, would commit the government to increase capital expenditure by four per cent and a reduction in recurrent expenditure by the same four per cent of the budget.
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