LGAs have poor development plan, none has budget, financial statements – FG

By Idowu Isamotu The federal government says there is none of the 774 Local Government Areas has budgetary allocations for the year 2024. It specifically said as such, nobody should jubilate over much-talked autonomy for the third tier of government because they don’t also have financial statements. The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and […]

By Idowu Isamotu

The federal government says there is none of the 774 Local Government Areas has budgetary allocations for the year 2024.

It specifically said as such, nobody should jubilate over much-talked autonomy for the third tier of government because they don’t also have financial statements.

The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, revealed this when he spoke at a Revenue Assurance Summit in Abuja on Tuesday.

Daily Trust reports that the summit, which was organised by Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), had all heads of 36 States Internal Revenue Services in attendance.

Oyedele, who was a keynote speaker at the summit, explained that it would be difficult for the local government areas to function properly in line with its mandate in the constitution without a budget.

“My committee looked online, we were looking for the Local Governments’ budget and we could not find a single copy for any of the 774 local governments.

“And if you can find it, you can share it with me before I leave here. If you can’t find their budgets, then you should not bother to look for their audited financial reports. That would be too ambitious.

“Ideally, every local government with the huge roles assigned to them by the constitution should develop a development plan of three to five years that says that about 2000 kilometres of roads will be tarred among others.

“Simple data, just develop it to know what you will do next when you get N1. That plan is what will be used to develop your annual budget and based on your budget, you will do implementation and financial statements,” Oyedele said.

He cited an example of South Africa where all LGs’ budget could be found on a particular website by anybody in the country.

“For example, go to municipalmoney.com, which is the portal in South Africa for all local governments, when you get to the website, you will see all the local governments’ budgets, development plans, audited financial statements and reports of money they spent considered as waste or unproductive.

“I wish we could do something like this in Nigeria,” the Presidential aide added.

According to him, the root cause of growing multi-dimensional poverty lies on the non-functionality of the third tier of government.

The presidential aide stressed that if there is no budgetary allocation that would serve as a plan, implementation to tackle some fundamental issues that caused poverty might be difficult.

He added, “If you look at the right of that screen (pointing to his power point presentation), you will see the functions of the local government. My committee got to work as soon as the Local Governments were granted autonomy, we said we were not going to start celebrating that you can pay money to the LGs. No!

“If Mr A is managing your money and is stealing it, what is the assurance that Mr B will not waste or steal our money like Mr A? That is what is fundamental. So, I now looked at the constitution to find out what the LG was meant to be doing. I was surprised at what the constitution states.

“LGs are meant to provide accommodations for destitute; look at what we have to do to maintain roads, street lightning, drainages, parks and gardens. They have to provide public convenience, sewage, refuse sites and water, and they have to work with the states to provide primary, adult and vocational education.

“They have to deal with agriculture development so we are not hungry, and to also address health services. If you remember when we started with multi-dimensional poverty, you see that almost 75% of the reason for poverty are the jobs of local governments.”