EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Court Ruling; Many Governors in Alleged Last-minute Devouring of LGA Funds
The last may not have been heard of the Supreme Court ruling that granted autonomy to Local Government Councils recently.
There are allegations that many governors are rushing to introduce all manners of policies that are targeted at pilfering the local government areas.
The issue of local government autonomy has lingered for some time. It is thought that states habitually sit upon funds sent to the state joint local government account, depriving LGAs their much needed development.
Economic Confidential reports that proponents of the autonomy argue that being the closest government to the people, councils should be politically and economically independent, with democratically elected leaders, allowing them grow at their own pace.
Those against the development think granting the autonomy and giving access to funds will just breed another group of politicians who will take their own pound of “national cake” without meaningful impact on the grassroots.
In this regard, federal government took legal action by filing a lawsuit against the 36 governors at the Supreme Court seeking an order to allow federation allocations to be credited directly to the accounts of the LGs.
It will also stop the governors from constituting caretaker committees to run council affairs, and to restrain the governors from receiving, spending, or meddling with funds released from the federation account for the benefit of local governments.
The federal government won the suit with declaration of the Supreme Court that “a state government has no power to appoint a caretaker committee and a local government council is only recognisable with a democratically elected government” and that “the state government has no power or control to keep the local government council money or funds.”
Despite FG’s victory in court, Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) still allocated funds for the month of June to all the local governments joint accounts nt including those run by the outlawed caretaker committees on the ground that they are yet to receive the formal judgement from the Ministry of Justice.
With this development, there are indications that state governors are taking the opportunity to have their last pound of flesh from the local governments’ allocations.
For instance, the Kano state Governor, Abba Yusuf, recently rolled out various projects across LGAs that showed that the status quo may not have changed in the state and other states across the country. These projects include:
1. Approval of procurement of 500 relief electricity transformers to be distributed to various communities across the 44 local government areas in the state for 7,123,750,000.00 billion Naira.
2. Approval of 7,761,681,223.22 billion Naira for the continuation of 5km dual-lane road projects at the State’s 44 Local Government Areas. The amount being 10% rescue intervention to be settled through the joint state/local governments account, based on 30:70 share.
3. Approval for the construction of Three Rural Roads at Ja’en Makera-Salanta Gudduba- Unguwar Baizangon Guliya and Fagoje-Kwanar Zuwo in Gwale, Ajingi and Kiru/Madobi LGAs. 239, 536, 859.21 million Naira was approved.
4. Approval of 6,400,000,000.00 billion naira for the 2024 Constituency Projects in the State.
5. Approval of 343,363,068.78 million naira for Construction of 2-coat surface dressed road from Kwanar Gammawa in Gezawa LGA.
6. Approval of 819,500,000.00 million for the procurement of Twenty (20) Nos. Toyota Hilux and One (1) No. Toyota Bus to the State Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS).
7. Approval of 5,345,343,190.98 billion Naira for the construction of Rural roads, intervention/counterpart funds under rural access and agricultural marketing project.
8. Approval of 26,405,447.92 million Naira for the renovation and conversion of offices for the Chairman Anti-Phone snatching Task Force Committee at Coronation Hall, Government House.
9. Approval 29,619,918.23 million Naira for the repair of failed section of Asphaltic surfacing within the premises of Town Tower at Kofar Nassarawa.
10. Approval of 354,766,992.59 million Naira for 30% counterpart fund in respect of the construction/rehabilitation of Twelve Rural road across the 44 LGAs.
11. Approval of 248,786,369.72 million naira for additional expansion on scope of work on crash barriers and street curbs and painting.
12. Approval of 130,460,000.00 million Naira for the payment of harmonized allowances for 2,803 casual staff at Refuse Management and Sanitation Board.
Credible sources that are familiar with operations of state and local government funds have also informed Economic Confidential on the condition of anonymity that similar things are happening in most of the 36 states and the end game is to take as much as possible from joint account before the Supreme Court ruling is fully effective.
