Leading by Example
By Phillip Oladunjoye
Monday, May 30, 2005
A delegation of local government chairmen from Taraba State to Newswatch led by Danladi Baidu, commissioner for local government says the State has the best system of resource management at the local government level
The Taraba government appears to be setting an example in the management of local government fund. Arbitrary deductions from local government allocations which has became a problem between many state governors and their local council chairmen is not allowed to thrive in the state. Local government allocations in the state are disbursed to the council chairmen as and when due without arbitrary deductions by Jolly Nyame, the state governor.
According to Danladi Baidu, state commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs who recently led a team of seven council chairmen on a visit to Newswatch in Lagos, the relationship between the state government and the local government has been cordial. He said Nyame does not interfer with the statutory allocations meant for the councils in the state.
He described Nyame as a true democrat who respects the independence of the three tiers of government and noted that unlike other states where the governors make arbitrary deductions from allocation meant for the councils, the situation in Taraba state is different. According to him, the state government only deducts what is allowed as the statutory deductions meant to cater for some of the responsibilities of the local governments.
The chairmen who accompanied him on the visit confirmed this. According to Mark Oseni, chairman of Takum Local Government area, funds are released to local governments in the state without any interference from the state government. He noted that local governments in the state were allowed to run their affairs, award contracts based on the needs of the people and such projects were executed for the purpose they were meant for. The projects carried out by local governments in the state include, the building of maternity clinics, dispensaries, bore holes, rural feeder roads and the provision of logistics support to the traditional institution. "On the whole we have been doing our best to utilise the resources to meet the needs of the people," he said.
Mustapha Gabdo, chairman, Gashaka Local Government Area spoke in the same vein. He said funds are allocated to local government chairmen after the constitutional sitting of the joint accounts committee where the statutory deductions would be made and the rest disbursed to each of the 16 local government chairmen in the state.
Gabdo disclosed that the governor has no hand whatsoever in management of the funds of the local governments. He explained that the chairmen made use of the funds judiciously to the benefit of the people. According to him, there was no ward in the state that has not benefited from one project or the other from the local governments. "If elections are to be conducted again in all our 16 local governments areas, I want to assure you that all of us will be re-elected strictly based on merit, on the level of performances on the ground," he said.
Gabdo explained that the chairmen have constituted finance and general purpose committees which carry out studies on projects to establish the costing before such projects are awarded to contractors. This, he noted, was to guard against over-bloated contracts in line with the principle of due process of the federal government. He also said that projects in the state are carried out within a specified time.
On the suggestions in some quarters at the National Political Reform Conference calling for the scrapping of the local government system in the country, Gabdo said it was unthinkable, considering the position of the local governments in the development of the grassroots. He said the chairman is the most important person to the local people and he is available to them 24 hours of the day. "It is only the local government chairman that responds to the electorate's need with ease before it gets to the state. The chairman is the gate between the electorate and the state government. So, nobody should say that local government system should be scrapped," he said.
John Garba, chairman, Kurmi Local Government, dismissed such suggestion as undesirable. He said the people with such suggestion were those embittered with their local government chairmen because they were not allowed to control the local government funds. "Those who think that local governments should be scrapped are those that do not know the relevance of the local government to the socio-economic development of our rural areas," he said.
Baidu also dismissed claims that Governor Nyame hardly stayed in the state, saying the alleagation was being perpetrated by the detractors of the governor. He explained that anytime the governor was out of the state, it was on official assignment and that he always maintained constant touch with members of his cabinet. "Nyame's detractors accuse him of not staying in Jalingo, the state capital, but this is totaly false. If Nyame is not achieving, there is no way Taraba people would have voted him in three times. There is no day that Nyame is not in touch with Taraba wherever he is," Baidu said.
The commissioner commended the management of Newswatch for the quality of news it publishes. Bala Dan Abu, editor, Newswatch magazine expressed gratitude to the delegation for deeming it fit to visit the organisation all the way from Taraba State.
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