The Ondo State government has clarified that the allocation of N5 billion for the renovation of a daycare center in the state’s 2024 budget was a printing error.
The state’s Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Emmanuel Igbasan, attributed the mistake to a mix-up by the printer of the budget document.
Igbasan explained that the N5 billion provision was intended to reflect the expected drawdown from the Nigerian for Women Project, a World Bank-supported initiative, which had been previously included under the capital receipts section of the budget.
He clarified that the actual allocation for the renovation of the daycare center was N18 million.
The clarification came after the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, of using the purported N5 billion allocation as a means to gather funds ahead of the upcoming governorship election.
Igbasan acknowledged the error and stated, “This is a regrettable printer’s interpolation error that occurred during the process of preparing the document for publication.
At the operational level, this error will not materialize and is almost impossible to detect.” He also assured that measures were being taken to rectify the error promptly.
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