I hope this will be passed into law, it makes a whole lot of sense. Reps BACK LG AUTONOMY, Scrap SIECs, Remove immunity clause The House of Representatives on Wednesday at 11.04 pm announced the result of its votes on salient aspects of the constitution. At the end of the voting exercise it granted autonomy to local governments. It also allowed for independent candidates in future elections and as well barred unelected local government chairmen from getting funds from Federal Government allocation. The House equally fixed uniform term of four years for local government council chairmen and prescribed denial of appropriation to councils that were not democratically elected. In the 87 clauses recommended by its ad hoc committee on review of 1999 Constitution (as amended) the House altered Section 308 which accorded immunity from prosecution from criminal offences for persons occupying the offices of president, vice president, governor and deputy governor. The voting on the clauses was carried out by 339 lawmakers, with the Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal announcing after the manual voting, stating that none of the 87 clauses voted on by the House failed,and that they passed the required two third requirement for constitution amendment. Under the new amendment, elections into local government councils would be managed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) while the State Independent Electoral Commissions was scrapped. The House also altered Section 197 to abrogate State Independent Electoral Commissions(SIECs). The House also altered the contentious Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, abrogated State Joint Local Government accounts and empowered each local government to maintain its own special account to be called “Local Government Council Allocation account.”
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 10:36:24 +0000