The National Union of Local Government Workers (NULGE) is set to submit a template to the presidency and state governors on how to achieve a seamless implementation of the recent Supreme Court judgement granting financial autonomy to that level of government.
Tagged “Operational Guidelines,” the template contains seven crucial steps the NULGE believes are capable of eliminating the core issues that have crippled the local government administration in the country.
NULGE national president, Ambali Olatunji, unveiled the blueprint while featuring on Agbami Oselu, a programme of a private radio station in Ibadan, Fresh FM, on Sunday, at the Oyo State capital, Ibadan.
He dismissed fears being expressed in certain quarters that some of the inadequacies of local government administration such as the inability to pay the salaries of primary school teachers could undermine the financial autonomy.
“Then, local governemnt workers themselves were not getting their salaries as well. It wasn’t teachers alone, that was the beginning of the idea of zero allocation. Some of the chairmen that had fund also did not perform very well as chairmen.
“However, we thank God that now that we have secured freedom this second time; we have learnt our lessons.
“One, we are in the era of social media unlike in the past when one can hide to perpetrate fraud and think he can go scot free.
“Our youths are internet savvy; our second proposal to the federal government when we were seeking the local government (LG) autonomy was that whatever allocation is going to the LG should be published in the national dailies.
“They should publish the monthly allocation of LG, so how chairmen and councilors will now tell the people that there is no fund to serve them. Third, we went to court against the governors on the National Financial Intelligence Unit (FNIU) guidelines under the Buhari administration when the governors went to challenge it then.
“NULGE got a counsel and joined in the matter because the judgement would have implications for us, that it will determine the future of workers. We won at the lower court against the governors.
“When the governors went to the Appeal Court, we still won. So, what the FNIU guideline stands for is that LG cannot spend money anyhow.
“There is a procedure. No chairman has the power to just dip his hand into LG fund, it must be based on Procurement Act. They must also track their daily expenditure with the NFIU guidelines.
“The fifth item on our proposal was that we requested that the auditor general for LG should come from the LG to monitor LG expenditure.
“The sixth is that EFCC and ICPC have formed a partnership based on our struggle for LG, and the people will follow by being whistleblowers.
“The seventh point is that NULGE has also alerted our members that for this development to gain ground, we must come up with an operational guideline which the Ministry of special Duties and intergovernmental affairs will roll out.
“It will contain that the salaries of workers, teachers and workers of health workers will be first line charge; that the salaries of LG workers should be remitted to LG Service Commission; that the salaries of teachers should be remitted to the SUBEB directly; that the salaries of health workers should be remitted to the Primary Healthcare Development Agency .
“Besides, there should be regular training, workshop for LG workers, teachers and others from time to time, that one percent training fund should be remitted to LG Service Commission, that one percent should be remitted to SUBEB. Besides, five percent allocation to obas and chiefs should be constant and sacrosanct; it should be remitted into their account.
“All this will be contained in the operational guideline. We have made all these arrangements at our meeting with the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), medical and health workers unions held last week .
“It part of the template we developed. It is what we are going to submit to the presidency and the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental affairs. We also recommended that there should be training and workshops for all the councilors as well because their oversight functions are dead so that they can monitor the chairman and expenditure of local goverments. These are the internal mechanisms to control the LG now.”
He faulted moves by some governors to set up committees with a mandate to review and advise the government on the Supreme Court judgment saying they lack the power to do so.
“They claimed not to be spending money on the local government, why all the fuss? Why are they fighting tooth and nail over the LG fund? The governors have no power to review the judgement of the Supreme Court. It is beyond them. He has no power. The Supreme court judgement is final.
“What they can do is to set up a committee to implement the judgment. Let them concentrate on governance of the state.”
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