The secretary general of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, Mohammed Abubakar, has revealed that contrary to media reports, the local government councils have not received direct communication to open accounts with CBN for direct payments of allocations.
He said the councils were ready to comply as soon as they received communications from the office of the accountant general of the federation or the attorney general of the federation.
Mr Abubakar also blamed the state commissioners of finance for the delay in the implementation of the Supreme Court judgement on direct allocation to LGAs.
The ALGON scribe made the allegations during an interview with the Punch newspaper published on Sunday.
“There is nothing stopping the local governments from opening their accounts. The authorities advising the local governments to open accounts have not sent a single memo or circular to any local government in that regard. Let the office of the Accountant General or the Attorney General send a memo to the local governments telling them to provide an account; they will provide it within the next 48 hours.
“They [FG] are just saying it on the media. I can tell you we have local governments who are ready to provide accounts, but who will they give it to? Where will they submit it? There should be direct communication to each local government, requesting the account with clear instruction of where it will be submitted. But the state commissioners for finance, who are members of the FAAC, are hellbent on saying that local governments cannot access their funds directly because they are still in charge and the Supreme Court judgement is not enough reason for direct payment of allocation to the LGs.
He added that, “We understand that the Supreme Court has given it’s ruling on direct payment of allocation to the local government. However, there has been a deliberate effort by some set of people to frustrate that judgement.FAAC has not implemented the directive of the Supreme Court after eight months.”
He exonerated state governors from the commissioners’ action, saying they are not members of FAAC
He also explained the reason behind a recent lawsuit filed by ALGON demanding its inclusion in FAAC.
“They are the commissioners for finance of the states because they are the FAAC members. The governors are not members of the FAAC but their finance commissioners are. The information reaching us is that the commissioners for finance of the states who constitute members of the FAAC always raise objections anytime the issue of sending money directly to the local government comes up. We have made case that the local government should have representative in the FAAC. LGs should also have representative in FAAC; the absence of these representatives is what gives room for the commissioners for finance to continue collecting the LGs funds on the pretence that they are helping the local governments to get the money. Their claim is that they don’t want all the 774 to be in Abuja.
“We are looking at the possibility of the commercial banks to come forward to open accounts for all the local governments, since the Accountant General said they [LGAs] don’t have an account. We believe that with this suit, the commercial banks can be mandated to open the account for the LGs. It is not the function of CBN to open these accounts because it is not a commercial bank. The aspect that we highlighted in the suit is the FAAC and account opening, because those are the two obstacles preventing local government representatives in the FAAC and direct payment of allocation to the LGs. We had earlier written a letter in which we warned that the commissioners should frustrate or oppose local government representation in FAAC and direct payment of allocation to the LGs. If the court grants our request, it means we will invite these banks to open accounts for local governments, that is why joined them in the suit. The court will give them the mandate to open account for the LGs.”
