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The President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Ambali Olatunji, has disclosed that the Federal Government will commence direct payment of allocations into the accounts of each local government by the end of October.
Olatunji, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, said the full implementation of financial autonomy for local government administration would begin by the end of this month.
Recall that the Supreme Court had in July ruled that the Federal Government should henceforth pay allocations directly to local government councils from the federation account.
In the judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the court held that it was unconstitutional for state governors to hold funds allocated to the councils.
The court also declared that a state government had no power to appoint a caretaker committee, noting that a Local Government council is only recognisable with a democratically elected government.
However, governors who had earlier opposed the judgment pushed for a three-month window to enable them to conduct elections in the councils of their various states.
The three-month extension ended in September.
Olatunji, the NULGE president, expressed optimism that the direct disbursement of funds to local governments would improve their efficiency and enable the councils to provide better services and address the developmental needs of their communities.
He said, “Come October 11, the implementation of financial autonomy for local government will take full effect. We hope that by the end of October, local government allocations will directly reach council accounts across the country.”
Olatunji added that NULGE had submitted a position paper on how local government councils should be administered to the technical committee set up by the Federal Government for the implementation of financial autonomy.
He urged the federal and state governments to put in place measures to ensure that the funds were not diverted by the council administrators.
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