Emeka Ibemere
There is no gainsaying that
corruption has been the obvious factors of non effectiveness of Local
Government Area Councils, the much talked about the third tier of government.
Over the years, council
developments have been at all time low not because funds weren’t made for the
development of the grassroots but because of the simple fact of corruption.
So, isn’t by surprise when
the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim
Lamorde on, April 28, declared that Local government in Nigeria cannot achieve
its aim of bringing development to the grassroots, if the problem of systemic
corruption was not curbed.
The anti-corruption Czar
was at the opening ceremony of the EFCC/ALGON Training on Anti-Corruption,
Fiscal Responsibility and Effective Leadership for principal officers of Local
Government Councils in Nigeria, when he made the obvious observation.
Lamorde was represented in
the occasion by the director, Organisational Support, Bolaji Salami. Speaking
on the need for the officers of the council areas to be prudent in their fiscal
responsibility, he said. “The problem of corruption and lack of fiscal
transparency perhaps remain one of the hydra-headed factors that accounts for
the inefficiency and retarded growth that local governments continue to
experience in Nigeria today. The system has virtually become superfluous
and redundant,” he said.
Lamorde said “Corrupt practices
in the local governments have over the years rendered the local governments
inactive and devoid of concrete developmental activities”.
According to the EFCC
chair, corruption thrives in the local councils through inflation of prices;
over-estimation of cost of project(s); the ghost workers syndrome; award of
contracts and subsequent abandonment; and outright payment of huge sums of
money to political godfathers.
However, the EFCC chairman
said the Commission was happy to collaborate with ALGON to enlighten and train
its officials.
“I am by this medium
assuring ALGON that the EFCC shall give ALGON all the support it requires to
educate its officials all over the country on anti-corruption. Fiscal
responsibility and effective leadership at the grassroots level,” he said.
Earlier in his opening
remark, Ozor Nwabueze Okafor, the President of ALGON expressed appreciation to
EFCC and Discovery Circle Inc. for the training which he said was critical for
the realization of the mandates of the councils.
“The most critical
challenge is not the autonomy issues or the financial allocation but the
capacity of those entrusted with these things to deliver on their expected
mandate,” Okafor stated.
In their
respective goodwill messages, the Acting Chairman of the Fiscal
Responsibility Commission, Victor Murako and the representative of the Director
General of Bureau of Public Procurement, James Akamu said it was imperative
that participants carry out their duties with fiscal prudence and due process.
They opined that
domestication of both the Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement Acts in
the states would go a long way in bringing sanity to the third tier of
government. As if the ongoing conference in Abuja was aware of the
chairman of the EFCC’s view about the predicament of the Local Government
Areas, the Abuja Confab panel are tinkering abolishing the third
tier government in the polity.
The Confab panel wants 774 councils scrapped.
The Confab is apparently suggesting a way to introduce two tiers of government
in the country. It was reported that the Committee on Political Restructuring
and Forms of Government at the ongoing National Conference recommended the
scrapping of the 774 local councils from the constitution and transfer their
administration to the states legislature. But as the discussions were under
way, members of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE)
stormed the National Judicial Institute (NJI), venue of the National
Conference, to protest the decision of the committee. Meanwhile, the Federal
Government last week inaugurated a 13-member presidential committee on the
review of the scheme of service for local council employees.
As if that wasn’t enough, the committee, which focus on local council
administration in the country bent on reforming the local council areas of the
country with recommended that the list of local councils as contained in the
First Schedule, Part 1 of the 1999 Constitution be removed and transferred to
the states to be covered by a law of the state Houses of Assembly in a move to
rejig the grassroots administration in the country.
The panel had after its
deliberation on the issue two weeks ago, recommended the removal of local
council as a third tier of government and gave express authority to the states
executive to determine the number to operate in their states among others, even
as it insists that Nigeria would remain a federation with the existing 36
states structure.
Leading other members of the group, National Vice President of NULGE,
Lucky Gospel Ewa, while making a presentation to the committee, chaired by Gen.
Ike Nwachukwu and Mohammed Kumalia, faulted the conferees on the position.
He further expressed worry that the status of local council was being
threatened at the National Conference. Ewa argued that the local council, being
the sphere of government closest to the people, was the utmost indication of
accelerated and sustainable socio-economic development, poverty alleviation and
rural democratic mobilisation in any polity. He wondered why the enviable
height attained in the local council cannot be sustained, just as he lamented
the efforts he said were being consciously made to further erode the gains
already recorded by the tier of government.
While blaming governors for the move as unacceptable, he disclosed that
the clamour of the state governments to have dominant control over local
councils was being driven by an erroneous perception of reality by rivalry of
executive powers being alleged on the part of council chairmen.
Ewa argued that the transfer of the responsibility of local councils to
the state government would return local councils to the pre-1976, era and also
that of 1979-1983 with its attendant implications and danger of political power
concentration.
“Nigeria should not forget in a hurry the condition of the local councils
between 1979-1983 state governments had dominant control over local councils.
Our memory should not fail us to recall that no state conducted election into
local councils”, he added.
“The excruciating handling
of local council affairs by the state government contributed to the overheating
of the polity that eventually collapsed the Second Republic”.
On the creation of
additional local councils, he contended that the power should reside with the
Federal Government using population and landmass as major criteria so as to
address the problem of imbalance among other recommendations by NULGE.
“No matter the driving force behind the intention to abolish local
council as a tier of government and remove the guarantee of its autonomy from
the constitution, be it economic or political or both as we understand it to
be, the union wishes to reiterate its recommendations that the system of local
council by democratically-elected local government council should be guaranteed
by the constitution,” he counselled.
The committee also
adopted the recommendation that the functions of local councils as contained in
Schedule 4 of the 1999 Constitution shall be transferred to the states subject
to the power of the state Houses of Assembly to add or reduce from the list.
It reaffirmed Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution that the system of local
councils by democratically- elected local government council is guaranteed.
Inaugurating the committee in Abuja, the Minister of Special Duties and
Inter-governmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, said that the effort would in
no small measure help to curb rural-urban drift of manpower.
‘’As it stands today, the
teeming youths of this country prefers working in the cities to small towns or
villages after graduation, but if the conditions of service are made
attractive, most of them would be encouraged to seek employment at the local
level’’, the minister noted.
The terms of reference for the committee includes: To review the current
scheme of Service (2006 edition), to liaise with the establishment department
to incorporate approved cadres in the scheme of service and to produce a draft
copy of local government scheme of service, among others.
The minister said that
the committee is expected to complete its assignment in earnest to enable the
ministry present the documents for validation by stakeholders during the
Committee of Local Government Forum (CLGF)/ the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) supported conference slated for second week of June.
Earlier in his welcome
address, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Taiye Haruna, said that
it is hoped that through the planned review and the ongoing collaboration
between the ministry and the UNDP and other stakeholders, effective and
sustainable development will be realised at the local level in Nigeria.
Responding on behalf of
the committee, the Chairman, Local Government Service Commission, Niger State
and representative from the North-West, Alhaji Ibrahim Halidu, appealed to the
ministry to assist in carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of members of
staff in all the councils in the country with a view to identifying ghost
workers. Halidu promised that the committee members would do their best to turn
around the fortunes of the local government service commission for the overall
benefit of the nation.
The committee drawn from
the six-geopolitical zones, Head of Service, NULGE as well as the ministry, has
Umaru Ambrose as its chairman and Dr. Rufai Attahiru from the ministry as
secretary.
No comments:
Post a Comment