#UrhoboAwarenessYouth# In Delta, council chairs assume airs on october 06, By Emma Amaize IN Delta state, local government chairmen see themselves as lords and masters, but do very little to improve on infrastructures in their local governments. Their major complaint is lack of fund and except for a number of them that know their onions; majority see the office as an opportunity to amass wealth. Their concern is money— Manuwa An ordained clergy, Reverend Lucky Manuwa, who hails from Kokori, Ethiope-East Local Government Area, told Niger Delta Voice, “I know the chairman of the my local government area, but my expectations have not been met. I thought he should be thinking about the problems of communities in the area, but nothing is being done about our plight. These people just come to share allocation at the end of the month. “There is no council presence in my town, Kokori. At a time, a water borehole was sunk and I thought the council had woken up at last, but alas, it was some public spirited indigenes of the community that sank the borehole, the council has nothing to show in Kokori. It is the same story at Okpara, Ovu, Orikpo and Eku, “he added. “Some time ago, I was told that the council was to do some roads in Abraka, but up till now, nothing is going on. All you hear from council chairmen in the state is they paid salaries, as if paying salaries is an achievement. Some even owe workers,” he added. Not always in office Rev Manuwa, a retired police officer, asserted, “What is disturbing is that our council chairman does not even live in Isiokolo, the headquarters of the local government. You can go there 20 times in a month; you cannot see him in office, which is their style of governance.” He said: “Most of the chairmen do not care about the development of the councils, they just collect allocation and go away. There is no security and they do not bother about it.” Also speaking to Niger Delta Voice, a former chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Council, Chief Tony Ogbo, said, “The chairman of the local government operates from Asaba, the state capital. He is not based at Akwukwu-Igbo, the headquarters of the council; it is from Asaba that he runs the council. “When he wants to sign files and cheques, they bring them to him in Asaba. The council officials do not come to work too because there is no proper supervision. When we were in government, things were not like this. “There was budget those days, but now, they do not have budget, they run the councils the way they fancy because they feel they were appointed. “Most of them do not even know the functions of a local government council and I ask myself, why such persons were appointed as chairmen of councils in Delta state.” Councillors can’t confront them His words: “Because most of the chairmen do not have any budget or work plan, they only take issues as they come. It is just like a triangle: the chairman, the secretary to the local government and director of personnel management. “The councillors cannot challenge the chairman because he will withhold their money; which is all they are interested in.” He said he wept when one of the councilors told him that there was nothing they could do, as the system that threw them up, did not empower them to challenge the chairman. House of Assembly neglects role Chief Ogbo lamented that the House of Assembly in the state, which was supposed to play a supervisory role, despite the fact that the third tier of government ought to be autonomous, do little or nothing to check the inaction of the chairmen.…traditional rulers too The ex-council boss also blamed traditional rulers in the different communities for not speaking out against the prodigality of the chairmen for fear that they would stop the payment of their stipends. He said: “Ask the chairmen what they have achieved in office, they will tell you that they paid salaries/allowances. Can you imagine, they do not talk of development carried out, take Oshimili North, there is no council quarters in the local government headquarters since it was created. “Why is the chairman residing in Asaba and not Akwukwu-Igbo, is the governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, not staying in Asaba, the state capital, why should the council not build living quarters for the chairman and staff in Akwukwu-Igbo. “It was only after your paper, Niger Delta Voice, recently exposed the abandonment of the Comprehensive Health Centre, Akwukwu-Igbo, built by the Federal Government for Oshimili North, but abandoned for many years, that the council decided to clear the facility hitherto overgrown by bush and put interlocking stones.” I go to work— Oshimili North chair Chairman, Oshimili North, Mr. Innocent Esewezie, sharply reacted to the allegation that he is an absentee chairman when contacted by Niger Delta Voice, saying, “I go to work.” On the abandoned health centre, now being renovated, he said he never abandoned the facility and did not embark on the current work on the project because of Niger Delta Voice report, lambasting him for inactivity. According to him, he had planned to work on the neglected health facility and bill of quantity, BOQ, already raised by the council, but for lack of resources. I reside, work in Patani—Dr. Ekiyor Chairman of Patani local government council, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, who admitted to Niger Delta Voice that some local government chairmen were actually operating from outside their councils, said the situation was same in Patani until he came on board. He said: “I am from Patani and I have my residence in the town before I was appointed chairman. So I am living in my house. “But the truth is that the council has not living quarters for the chairman of the local government in Patani, so those, who were chairmen before me, live and came to work from Ughelli. “As chairman for two years or so, I can tell you that I am an exception, I live here in Patani, but let me tell you, it is not only the chairmen that do not live in the local government headquarters because of lack of accommodation, other staff of the council also come from outside the local government to work and this affect work,” he added. Why LGs‘re not performing Dr. Ekiyor, was, however, unhappy that people expect so much from the third tier of government without bothering to find out if the chairmen have funds to perform their functions. He said the Patani council was barely managing to pay salaries at the moment and on occasions, its monthly allocation, after the usual deductions, was not enough to pay workers, it goes borrowing from banks and once the next allocation comes, the bank is at the door to collect its money with interest. With his experience so far at the council level, Dr. Ekiyor said he was at a loss what many people were struggling to be local government for because “it is starved of funds to operate. “You have the primary school heads running to the local government council to do some minor repairs, buy chalks and even uniforms for students; you also have the police, JTF and DSS that have to be assisted one way or the other because of the importance of security in the area; and you also have the health centres to cater for, but there is not fund at your disposal.” People pester chairmen a lot The chairman said most chairmen wake up to see villagers gathered at their gate for one need or the other, and more often than not, “I have found myself spending my personal money to offset their private needs because when you tell them that you do not have money, they think you are telling a lie or do not want to help them.” Meetings “Again, most times people say they do not see local government chairmen in the office, it may be that they went to meeting. For instance, the governor may invite us to a meeting or there are matters for which our attention is needed at the state capital, the chairmen have to attend.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 19:00:05 +0000
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