The stage is set for a showdown between governors and the House of Representatives. The latter has moved to amend the constitution to grant local government councils in the country financial autonomy.
Over the years, there has been a constant clamour for the separation of the accounts of local governments from the states in order to allow for development at the grassroots. This has however remained a mirage as state governors have constantly frustrated all efforts to stop the operation of a joint account, preferring instead to disburse funds to the councils at will.
But lawmakers yesterday passed a bill seeking amendment to sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution. It passed through a second reading on the floor of the House.
The amendment, which was referred to the special ad-hoc committee on the review of the Constitution for further legislative action, was sponsored by Hon Uche Ekwunife.
Leading the debate on the bill, Ekwunife said the proposed amendment was necessitated by the need to provide development in the rural areas.
She lamented that due to the dearth of funds in most local government councils, workers don’t get paid for months.
?“If we have local government chairmen only sitting to pay salaries and enjoy their overheads, what responsibility would they have to the people? If the amendment is not done to free the local governments, we will continue to see the high level of poverty as it is today,” she said.
Speaking in support of the proposed amendment, chief whip of the House Hon Ishiaka Bawa (Taraba) said apart from granting financial autonomy to local governments, the power of conducting elections should also be removed from the states.
Speaking in support, Hon Ganama Gwaga said, “We know how this joint account has been abused. Deductions are made at source and procurements made on behalf of the local governments without prior knowledge or approval of the council chairmen.
“We have to create an enabling environment for the chairmen to function so that the burden of providing amenities for the communities will not be transferred to us, the lawmakers.”
Another lawmaker, Daniel Asuquo, however, blasted former state lawmakers and speakers of state houses of assembly who had resisted earlier attempts to free local government council accounts from those of the states because they wanted to please their governors.
He said even some local government chairmen ganged up to “strangulate” the councils, midway into the return of democracy, a problem which was compounded by a Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that rather left the councils under the direct control of the state governors.
Apparently taking a shot at governors, he stressed that they were not ignorant of the repercussions of granting councils financial independence, but added that he would mobilise people from the grassroots to press for the passage of the bill at the state houses of assembly after it has been passed by the National Assembly.
The proposed amendment states that the National Assembly “shall make provision for statutory allocation of public revenue to local governments in the federation, as well provide for where “each local government shall be paid directly into an account to be maintained by each of such local governments.”