No Going Back On LG Autonomy – Tambuwal ********************** The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal has said there is no going back on National Assembly’s resolve for constitutional reform aimed at granting autonomy to the local government administration in the country. The Speaker made this declaration on Tuesday in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, at the sixth quadrennial national delegates’ conference of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE). He lamented that the absence of autonomy for local governments had continued to stretch service conditions and stifled growth at the grassroots, promising that when granted autonomy local government funds would no longer be appropriated by state governments. “There shall be in Nigeria a full-fledged third tier of government with complete complement of structures including the legislative council who shall henceforth appropriate local government funds,” he stated. If granted autonomy, Tambuwal stressed that only local governments with duly elected officials would be receiving grants from federation accounts, adding local governments across the country would have a harmonized tenure of office which would be for a period of four years. “We shall have uniform tenure for local government elected officials of four years and all local councils shall draw their funds directly from the federation accounts and not state Joint accounts,” he told the conference. The speaker allayed fears being entertained that the case for autonomy is only a ploy by the National Assembly to take over the oversight functions of state assemblies and a means of fighting a group of individuals. He said such insinuations were meant to pollute the minds of state lawmakers and other stakeholders, stressing that all the National assembly was doing was “to strengthen the institution of governance at the local government level”. In his submission, Governor Umaru Tanko Al Makura said he was convinced that attaining a virile society through sustainable growth and development at the grassroots was hinged on an autonomous third tier of government in Nigeria, especially “when there is a well-articulated mechanism of checks and balances by the state with the active participation of NULGE”. He said it was in this connection that his administration recognised the role of local governments in reaching out to the people at the grassroots, saying “in this regard, local government areas in the state are, to a large extent, operating with autonomy because they are given the free hand to provide the desired leadership to their areas in accordance with the needs and aspirations of the people”. The national president of NULGE, Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel Abdulkadir, accused state governments of relying on sections 7 and 126 of the constitution to justify their ulterior motive of frustrating every move to strengthen local government administration especially through inadequate funding, over-deductions, diversion of funds under various guises among others. He said NULGE was seeking autonomy of local councils from state governments to make them a truly independent and practically effective tier of government rather than the current “caricature of LG system where all manners of political and administrative experiments are carried out which has retarded the development of this nation” Via:-MR INTEGRITY
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 06:33:31 +0000
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