The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Edo chapter, has accused Gov Godwin Obaseki of Edo of constitutional crime against the Councils in the State.
The State President of the union, Mr Lazarus Adorolo made the accusation during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin on Friday.
He particularly alleged the governor of not only hijacking the functions of the local governments and also ripping off the councils of their fund.
The NULGE President stated that this abnormally have placed the council in a difficulty position to effectively discharge its duty to the people at the grassroot level.
According to him, “We cannot impact of the lives of the citizens becaue the State have hijacked our sources of revenue and yet the same State government that comes out to the public that local governments are not living up to their responsibilities.
“Local governments can only work to the benefit of the people if the issue of 1999 is looked into; councils needs to be completely autonomous.
“It is sad that the Chief Accounting Officer of councils are not taken into account whenever the distribution of the monies that comes to local governments are being shared.
“That is to say that the owners of the money does not have any input as to how the money is shared. That is against the provisions of 162 section 7 of the 1999 constitution.
“The councils do not get the 10 percent of the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) that the State is supposed to add to what comes from the federation account.
“The councils do not know what even comes from the federation account, we are only given what they feel like given us at the end of every month.
“At the end of the month, we receive all manners of directive from the office of the governor and his deputy to the effect of deductions from projects that have even been funded by agencies like World Bank and UNICEF.
“As we speak, the councils are being owed between five to 16 and half months salaries arearers, including deductions not remitted that all amounts to over N5 billion.”
Meanwhile, the State Commissioner for Local Government and Community Affairs, Mr Monday Osaigbovbo, denied the allegations and attributed the problem of local government to over staff.
While noting that he is not aware that there is a law passed by the State House of Assembly as regard 10 percent IGR contribution to the councils as required, he however said what the State is doing is more than 10 percent.
He stressed that the State has practically taken over the responsibilities of the council because they are weak financially.
“This is not peculiar to Edo, it is across the country. We are building and renovating schools and primary health centers are ought to be their responsibilities.
“Again, the councils are fully involved in the sharing of money from the federation, we do Pre-JAAC here in my office before we meet with the governor for the proper JAAC.
“Snce we do not have elected officials now, Heads of Service of the 18 local government areas are fully involved in this.
“Again, poor payment of taxes and other rates is also responsible for the dwindling fortune of the councils,” he stated