Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has summoned an emergency meeting with local government chairmen and other stakeholders in the state to address the local council to pay staff salaries for the month of June.
This is coming as the state House of Assembly had set up a six-man committee to investigate the finances of the state ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs over non-payment of June salary and other unnecessary deduction of local government funds in the state.
The committee was set up by Speaker Balarabe Ibrahim after the matter was raised by Danladi Jatau (PDP) under matters of public interest at the floor of the house.
The Speaker said that it was disheartening that second week into July local government staff in the state were yet to receive their June salaries.
DAILY NIGERIAN correspondent observed that there are fears that the findings by the committee would expose some inadequacies at the ministry.
Some of the local government staff who spoke to our correspondent called on the state governor and the state assembly to sit down and fashion out ways on how to deal with the situation.
It was also gathered that the inability of the local governments to pay salaries was due to directives by the Nigerian financial intelligent unit, NFIU, for financial autonomy to local government areas.
Before now, the allocations of the 13 local governments were shared among the 13 local government areas of the state and 19 development areas.
But, with the new development of direct funding, the funds will not be enough to pay the salaries of some local government and their development areas.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that some LGAs in the state have two or more development areas with the same staff strength with the local governments.
Presently, only four local governments, namely: Awe, Keana, Wamba and Keffi can pay salaries while the others will need to source for funds to augment.
