As customary with the Lagos State finance since the emergent of democracy, the government has declined to disclose the amount spent on houses, vehicles and sundry allowances of its former governors and ex-deputy governors.
Lagos is known for lack of openness in budgetary spending as figures for projects and other government expenditures are not usually disclosed to the public apart from the one presented to the state house of assembly.
BudgIT, a digital advocacy group has severally made case for budget transparency by the successive government of the state, but such efforts have failed to yield fruit.
A report by Punch on Monday showed that a Freedom of Information (FoI) letter written to the secretary to the government since December 2018 requesting for information on how much of taxpayers’ money had been spent on former governors and former deputy governors based on the Public Office Holder (Payment of Pension) Law No 11 official Gazette of Lagos State, 2007, has not been responded to.
The FoI letter had requested for the amount that had been spent on purchasing houses and vehicles for all former governors and deputy governors and other allowances paid to them from 2007 to December 2018.Follow up calls to the Information Commissioner, Kehinde Bamigbetan, have equally not yielded the desired result as the commissioner continue to ask for more time to deal with the issue.
The Public Office Holder (Payment of Pension) Law No 11 official Gazette of Lagos State, 2007 states that former governors of the state are entitled to a house each in any location of their choice in Lagos and Abuja.
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