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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's ongoing investigation into allegations that state governments diverted local government funds is creditable and should be all-embracing.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's ongoing investigation into allegations that state governments diverted local government funds is creditable and should be all-embracing. The EFCC, for sometime now, has been examining the books of local government councils in Lagos, Delta and Enugu states, amongst others, to verify compliance with the law that makes it illegal for state governments to deduct, alter or re-allocate funds allocated to local government councils from the Federation Account.
The law, titled: Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Government Act 2005, provides that each state should set up a State Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee to monitor payments into and distribution of funds thereof. Before this law, the Federal Government had been guilty of setting a bad precedence when it deducted LG council funds at source to fund the buying of jeeps for the Police under the auspices of ALGON, an association of council administrators.
Although some state governments have challenged it in court, the law is meant to ensure probity and autonomy of the third tier of government. The third tier of government has been crippled and made irrelevant to the people by greedy state governors who are not content with their statutory allocation from the Federation Account, but still dip hands illegally into council funds and usurp council avenues of generating internal revenues as approved by the Constitution.
The fourth schedule of the 1999 Constitution prescribes the functions of an LG council to include the 'provision and maintenance of public conveniences, sewage and refuse disposal; assessment of privately owned houses or tenements for the purpose of levying such rates; establishment, maintenance and regulation of slaughter houses, slaughter slabs, markets, motor parks and public conveniences." Others are 'construction and maintenance of roads, streets, street lighting, drains and other public highways, parks, gardens, open spaces; the provision and maintenance of primary, adult and vocational education; the provision and maintenance of health services and the development of agriculture."
However, states' usurpation of LG functions, particularly in Lagos, has thwarted the goals of improving grassroots conditions of living via direct financial allocation to councils. In Abia State, the government simply awards contracts unilaterally on behalf of councils and deducts cost directly at source. In Delta State, a commissioner was reportedly arrested for illegally deducting N11.3 million monthly from LG statutory allocations and diverting it into the purse of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party through a private firm.
Such criminal misappropriation and outright theft of council funds have eroded the powers of the councils to bring government closer to the people. With such illegal deductions, the councils are left with funds that are barely enough to settle the salaries of employees. This starvation, coupled with pervasive graft at the council level, leads to poor sanitary level at homes and public places. Public health centres and dispensaries are nonexistent and where available, lack essential drugs; primary schools are dilapidated, roads cannot be rehabilitated and heaps of refuse swallow markets and litter streets, thus jeopardizing the health of the citizens. Councils cannot contain simple epidemics or provide cheap treatment for malaria, dysentery, antenatal and delivery services.
Therefore, the EFCC probe should go round the states. The LG Act must be enforced to apprehend corrupt officials and deter others. It is tragic that the State Houses of Assembly that should check this executive pilferage have compromised and slept over their oversight duties. More importantly, individuals and non-governmental organisations should take advantage of the monthly publications of shared revenues to states and councils to monitor their constituencies closely for accountability and transparency. It is the duty of all stakeholders to blow the whistle whenever probity is being compromised at the third tier of government.
The PUNCH, Monday, January 16, 2006