LGs’ Dwindling Allocations and the IGR Question

To say that the monthly allocations to the three tiers of government are dropping drastically despite the controversial views of the Co-coordinating Minister of the economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will be stating the obvious.

The economic fortunes resulting from the downward slide of the monthly Federal allocation for reasons not clear is even more precarious at the local government councils that have high concentration of primary school teachers.

Sadly enough, while a large chunk of the monthly allocation to local governments across the country are being deducted “at source” for the payment of primary school teachers’ salaries, leaving little or nothing to the local government councils to meet their statutory responsibilities such as salaries and emoluments. The financial recklessness of political leadership at the local government level is most worrisome to say the least.

There are clear evidences that majority of the local government councils in Delta State are owing staff salaries for on average three months with nothing being said about the internally generated revenue, IGR, yet the Transition Committee Chairmen appointed by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan get their monthly security vote of about three million naira and spending like sums in the guise of monthly environmental sanitation mandate as well as other frivolous expenditures.

Investigations reveal that monies accruing from marriages conducted by local government councils, local government identification, tenement rate and other forms of levy often times go to private pockets to the detriment of the local government councils.

Most shocking is the curious silence of those at the helm of affairs in these councils, some of which are sometimes culpable in the IGR drain, leaving the councils to go borrowing and incurring huge debt profile. 

In summary, if urgent measures are not taken to shore up the IGR of local government councils and make those at the helm of affairs account for these revenues, particularly those in urban areas with large concentration of primary school teachers, most of the local government councils will collapse due to bankruptcy.

Editor –In-Chief

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